The Ones Who Almost Quit
I’ve been doing this for 25 years. Long enough to notice a pattern.
The patients who come back years later, who stop me in a parking lot or send a message out of nowhere to say that chiropractic changed everything, a huge portion of them almost quit at some point.
October has a way of bringing this to mind. The year is winding down, the days are shorter and people start taking stock of what they’ve followed through on and what they’ve let go. I see it in the clinic, in patients who have been managing something quietly all year who decide they’re done with nagging pain and seek me out to get my clinic’s help.
I also see the ones who tried chiropractic once, twice, or three times, and walked away before anything shifted.
I understand why.
When you’ve been carrying something for years, be it a zombie-style stiffness in your neck that’s just always there, a low back that flares with no clear reason, tension that lives behind your shoulders no matter what you do, you want relief to come quickly. I get it!
Here is the kicker. The nervous system does not change quickly. It adapts, compensates and protects over years, sometimes decades, and it does not simply release that history after a small handful of appointments. The same goes for the muscles, tendons, and ligaments.
But here’s what I wish someone had explained
to every one of those patients who gave chiropractic two to three visits: your nervous system built that pattern over a long time. Your physical body changed as well. It adapted, compensated and eventually settled into the dysfunction as though it were normal. Changing that pattern requires more than a few appointments. It requires giving your nervous system and your tissues enough consistent input, repetition of the right signal, that it begins to recognize a new normal.
That’s not a sales pitch for more visits.
It’s how the nervous system actually works. It’s how your body actually changes. Over time. It’s no different than going to the gym. You likely won’t achieve your fitness goals in two or three sessions. You’re not going to change the way your body functions in a two or three treatments either.
When my patients understand this, something shifts. Not in their spine (yet), but in their expectations. They stop waiting for the appointment that fixes everything and start participating in a process that builds something. That change in mindset is often when the real progress begins.
I had a patient last year who came back after a three month gap. She’d been doing well, life got busy, she stopped coming. When she returned she said something I’ve heard versions of many times: “I’m back to square one”. She was frustrated.
We talked about what her nervous system had been doing in those three months. Not failing, but adapting, as it always does, back toward the familiar. We talked about what consistent care actually looks like and what we were working toward together. She kept coming. Within a week or two we had progressed back to where she was before the hiatus. Three months later she told me she slept through the night for the first time in three years and she had stopped taking pain medications.
She almost quit before that happened
Chiropractic isn’t designed to be a quick fix
Even though some patients experience almost immediate relief from their symptoms, the overall plan isn’t always fast. I won’t pretend otherwise. With the right expectations and enough consistency, it has a way of changing things that nothing else reached. The people who experience that are almost always the ones who stayed, when staying felt uncertain..
If you’ve tried chiropractic before and walked away without feeling like it worked, I’d invite you to consider one question before you close the door entirely: did anyone explain to you what your nervous system and your body actually needed, and how long that takes?
If not, that conversation is worth having and a journey worth taking.
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Meet Dr. Denis Simons, DC
Helping people understand their treatment plan.
Dr. Denis Simons
Dr. Denis Simons has been practicing chiropractic in Calgary since 2000. He has spent time actively looking for better answers, which is how he ended up OTZ certified, treating frozen shoulder with a technique many health care providers haven’t heard of yet, and getting results that patients describe as immediate and dramatic when nothing else had moved the needle.
The pattern to find what works and pursue it, regardless of whether it’s familiar, runs through everything Dr. Denis does. He spent years skiing competitively and volunteering on the Lake Louise Ski Patrol. He traveled with the Canadian National Snowboarding team and treated Olympic medalists in venues far from any clinic. Touring musicians and athletes still track him down when they pass through Calgary, which says something about what happens in his treatment room that is hard to summarize on a bio page.
Dr. D’s Approach to Care
✔ Collaborate. work with a full collaborative team, referring and co-treating across physiotherapy, massage, acupuncture, and psychology.
✔ Tough Cases. A multi-disciplinary environment is the right one for the kinds of cases he’s drawn to, the ones with history, where the nervous system and the body need more than a single intervention to shift.
Dr. D’s particular focus on frozen shoulder and adhesive capsulitis reflects a broader truth about how he practices: he is interested in difficult to treat cases and succeeding where others didn’t. He keeps looking until he finds something that actually works.
If you have been carrying something that hasn’t resolved, Dr. Denis is the kind of clinician who works hard to find what you need.
Welcome to Our Newest Staff Members!
Vivian Ngo, Deerfoot, PT
Andrea Casola, West Springs, PT
Jayden Dixon, Seton, Kin
Isaac Barrs, Seton, Kin
Ly Su-Hackett, Creekside, RMT & Acupuncturist
Dr. Emily Nicol, Seton, Chiropractor
James Shymka, Creekside, Physiotherapist
Lyra Reyes, National Spine & Wellness, Kinesiologist
Chantelle Poelstra, Creekside, Physiotherapist
Community Corner: Changes to Our Costume Contest!
We get really into Halloween, but if we don’t have you voting, it’s just not the same!
Clinic Costume Contest – October 31
Our clinics put together a zany, outlandish, fun or all-of-the-above costume theme and compete for your votes. This year, only comments on Instagram will count. You’ll have from 2pm Oct 31 until 7pm Nov 1 to vote.
Get In On the Fun
Share! Add to Stories! Tell people! But most importantly, comment on the upcoming Instagram posts. Public voting ends at 7pm MST Nov 1.
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Schedule Your Appointment Today!
If you’re ready to make meaningful changes that actually last, scheduling an appointment with Momentum Health is the perfect place to start. Our team is here to help you move better, feel stronger, and build healthier habits all year long.
Healthy Recipe: Pumpkin Spice Energy Bites
No oven, ten minutes, and they keep in the fridge for a week. A good one to have on hand when October days fill up faster than you expected.
Makes about 18 bites
Ingredients
- 1 cup rolled oats
- ½ cup pumpkin purée (not pie filling)
- ⅓ cup almond or peanut butter
- ¼ cup maple syrup or honey
- ¼ cup ground flaxseed
- ¼ cup mini dark chocolate chips or chopped pecans
- 1½ tsp pumpkin pie spice
- Pinch of salt
Directions
- Stir everything together in a large bowl until evenly combined.
- Chill for 20 to 30 minutes so the mixture firms up.
- Roll into tablespoon-sized balls. Damp hands help.
- Store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to a week, or freeze for a month.
Notes
Tip: swap the nut butter for sunflower seed butter to make them school-safe.