What I Actually Think About Wellness Care
An Honest Answer To The Question I Get Most
Somewhere near the end of a course of care, most of my patients ask some version of the same question: "So how often should I come now?"
It's a fair question, and the answers people get from chiropractors range widely — from "only when you're in pain" to "you need weekly visits forever." Neither of those is what I actually believe or recommend.
Here's my honest position, up front.
I'm a proponent of ongoing chiropractic care after an initial issue resolves — I call it wellness care, and at Axiom I recommend it at once every two weeks.
Maintenance care I define as once a month, and I think that's the honest minimum for adjustments to keep contributing something useful.
But I don't think everyone needs the same thing forever, I don't think care should ever be open-ended, and I don't believe the version of "you need weekly visits for life" that gets some clinics in trouble with regulators and patients alike.
Here's the fuller picture of what I actually recommend, why, and what I refuse to recommend.
The Case For Ongoing Care, Honestly
Here's the thinking that shapes my recommendation. Consider what your body actually goes through in a normal 24 hours — hours of sitting, lifting, sleeping in whatever position you sleep in, working, driving, phone-scrolling, chores, exercise if you're lucky. Some of it's helpful for your body, some of it isn't, all of it accumulates.
Now multiply that by 14 days.
That's what an every-two-weeks adjustment is asking to unwind. Two weeks of accumulated postural loading, movement patterns, and daily-life stress on the musculoskeletal system. From that angle, once-every-two-weeks isn't excessive — it's roughly matched to how much life a body accumulates between visits.
That's my honest reasoning. Not "you need us forever because we're indispensable" — a lot more modest than that. It's just that daily life gradually loads bodies in specific ways, and periodic hands-on work seems reasonable to address it before it accumulates into something bigger.
What Wellness And Maintenance Actually Mean At Axiom
Let me be specific about terminology because the industry uses these words differently depending on who you ask:
Wellness care at Axiom is once every two weeks. This is what I recommend for most patients after an initial issue has resolved and we've completed a course of care. It's frequent enough to address the cumulative loading of daily life, infrequent enough that it doesn't dominate your calendar or your budget.
Maintenance care is once a month. This is what I consider the honest minimum for adjustments to still meaningfully contribute. Less frequently than that, and I'd rather someone come in for a specific complaint when it arises than pretend a quarterly visit is doing meaningful ongoing work.
Both are options. Which one fits depends on the person, their life demands, their history, and what they're trying to accomplish.
How People Get To Wellness Care
I don't push anyone into ongoing care from day one. Every patient at Axiom follows what I call graduated care stages, and moving between them is based on re-testing and results, not a fixed protocol.
The typical trajectory:
Care usually starts more frequent — often twice a week — when someone comes in with an acute or significant issue that needs concentrated attention
As they improve, that steps down to once a week
Then to once every two weeks
For some people, monthly
Each transition happens after re-testing to confirm the improvement is real and stable, and I review those results with the patient before we make the change. Nobody moves from active care to wellness care because a calendar says it's time — they move because their body's responses to testing say it's appropriate.
That's important. The graduated stages aren't arbitrary. They're based on objective findings that I share with the patient, so they can see for themselves what's changed and what the honest picture is.
What I Refuse To Recommend
There are things I won't recommend, regardless of what any marketing template suggests:
I refuse to tell people they only need chiropractic care when they're in pain or have a symptom. Waiting for pain to appear before addressing what's driving it is exactly the pattern that turns small issues into chronic ones. If someone's out of pain, that's a signal to shift the plan, not to disappear until the next crisis.
I also refuse to recommend care I don't think is genuinely useful:
I won't recommend weekly visits indefinitely for someone who's stable and has no clinical reason for that frequency
I won't recommend care without honest re-testing to justify continuing
I won't recommend that patients see me instead of their physician for something medical
I won't recommend that chiropractic care replaces exercise, sleep, sensible eating, or any of the other things that actually determine long-term MSK health
The version of chiropractic that I'm skeptical of is the one that positions the practitioner as indispensable — where the patient can't function without ongoing intensive care. That's not what evidence-aligned chiropractic looks like, and it's not what I practice.
What This Looks Like In Practice
If you come to Axiom with a specific complaint, we work through it — assessment, active care, re-testing, and a plan for what happens as things resolve. If you're the kind of person for whom ongoing wellness care makes sense given your life demands and history, we'll talk about it honestly, with a specific frequency (usually every two weeks), a specific reason, and a specific plan for how we know it's still contributing something useful.
If ongoing care doesn't fit your life, your budget, or your preferences, that's completely legitimate. Coming back for a specific issue when one arises is a valid model. What I want to avoid is people staying in monthly or bi-weekly care because they feel obligated rather than because it's genuinely serving them.
For the broader question of what a course of care actually involves, we've covered how often people should see a chiropractor more generally, and the honest do-you-have-to-keep-going question covers the flip side of this discussion.
The Bottom Line
I'm a proponent of ongoing chiropractic care — I recommend wellness at every two weeks and maintenance at monthly as reasonable options for most people after an initial issue resolves. But I only recommend it based on individual response and re-testing, not standard protocol pressure. I refuse to tell patients they need chiropractic only in crisis, and I equally refuse to tell them they need weekly care forever. Somewhere between those two extremes is the honest version — and that's the version I practice.
If you're wondering whether ongoing care makes sense for your situation, or you'd like an honest second opinion on a plan someone else has recommended, an assessment is a fine place to start that conversation. You don't need a referral to be seen. Axiom Chiropractic is in Hillhurst at 113 19 St NW, free parking on all sides. Book an assessment — and we'll be honest about what fits your situation.
