Jill C — San Francisco, CA

Before being referred to Dr. Jacobs by my boot camp trainer, I wasn’t so sure about chiropractic care. I’m a big believer in bodywork, and see a massage therapist regularly, but didn’t know how adding chiropractic care would benefit anything. I really thought it was for athletes and people with major disc problems.
Meanwhile, I’d be spending hours on my laptop, hauling groceries, lifting luggage into overhead compartments, and sleeping all crazy on airplanes. Consequently, my neck, shoulders, and lower back were tweaked for my entire adult life, and I just took it as normal. Sometimes I would just sneeze or stretch after waking up, and throw out my neck for days. Heating pads and Advil became my closest friends. This past summer (2010) it got so bad I couldn’t exercise, and my trainer sent me to Dr. Jacobs. I was ready to try anything at that point.
Literally, in ONE visit, I was able to get my range of motion back for important Life Things like driving in reverse, looking both ways before crossing the street, and generally moving. In two back-to-back visits over two days, it was like nothing ever happened to my neck.
Dr. Jacobs specializes in Active Release Technique (ART), a soft-tissue modality that works together with regular spinal adjustments. It feels pretty intense while it’s happening (I promise, you can handle it), but once it’s over, you feel a huge difference. This work undoes what’s pulling your back out of line in the first place. So while some people are concerned that committing to chiropractic care means endless readjustments for the rest of your life, you can be assured Dr. Jacobs has a goal in mind to get you back to normal.
Of course, you can’t lose twenty pounds / get rich / quit coffee in two days, and the same goes for eradicating pain permanently. Regular visits help you work backwards to undo years of patterns, and since your body holds injuries & stress in a sort of network of places to balance itself out, the places that need attention tend to travel around. Once the source of the pain is treated, Dr. Jacobs teaches you stretches and exercises so you don’t injure it again.
Seriously, enrolling in a program with Dr. Jacobs was a game-changer for me. I’ve broken up with my Advil, my heating pad sits unused, and I no longer beg boyfriends to work on that right shoulder while we watch TV. Now if I can come up with a new reason to skip the gym …