In ordinary chronic cases, with good vitality and reactive power, the daily adjustment is best at first. Then after a course of from six to twenty-four adjustments according to the judgment of the practitioner, the interval is lengthened and adjustments given on alternate days, a day of rest intervening between each two. In weak patients or those who are extremely sensitive, the shock of the daily adjustment, even at first, and the demand on the body’s recuperative power may be greater than can be met.
In this connection it may be mentioned that the author has encountered several cases of dorsal lordosis produced by too heavy and too frequent adjustments, straining the ligaments faster than they could be repaired and continuing the strain over too long a period. It is possible to over-adjust a patient, producing a weakened spine and other deleterious effects, just as it is possible to establish a “tolerance” for a drug by long continued use.
During a long course of adjustments it is well to allow the patient an occasional week of complete rest, or even more, and it may be wise after a time to reduce the number of adjustments to two per week in some cases.
On the other hand, the practice of giving one adjustment a week from the beginning, as followed by some practitioners who maintain offices in numerous localities and visit each one day per week, is not generally productive of good results and it is the author’s practice to refuse new cases who profess their inability to take more than one adjustment weekly. The interval is so long that all repair work started by each adjustment is completed and an involutionary change sets in before the next.
Specific vs. General Adjusting
By specific adjusting is meant the selection and adjustment of the vertebra or vertebrae which are known to be causing definite disease or weakness. The term “specific adjustment” implies that there is a particular reason existing and recognized for every vertebra adjusted.
General adjustment, on the other hand means either the adjustment of all palpable subluxations, or of all the most noticeable ones, or of all found providing that no two successive vertebrae be adjusted, according to the beliefs of different elements in the profession.
Specific adjusting relies upon the diagnosis and requires correct interpretation of disease. General adjusting considers only the condition of the spine and is given upon the principle that if the spine is right the man is right—a perfectly correct principle regardless of whether or not the general adjustment is advisable. Let us consider some of the arguments for and against each method and reach a conclusion if possible.