Rachael, it's nice to 'meet' you, too!
Your husband is perfectly normal. Most men prefer to wait until a problem is unbearable until seeking health care advice. That's just the way we're wired. I imagine that your husband's shoulder pain isn't yet out of control, that is, he doesn't feel pain until he moves his shoulder in a certain direction or lifts objects in just a certain way. If he's able to still perform many of his normal daily activities (such as combing his hair, shampooing, looking over his shoulder when driving backwards), then he'll regard those moments when he does feel pain as outliers. Only when he feels pain during the majority of his day, I imagine, will he be likely to seek help on his own.
You might not expect me to say this, but I usually try not to be pushy when a man is in a pre-health-care decision phase. If a man feels pushed into health care before he feels ready for it, he might not be willing to do everything that it takes to become truly healthy (rehab exercises, follow-up appointments, etc.). We men like to feel that our decisions are our own. Once we take ownership of the decision (put our mind to it), then we're willing to follow through on care and, interestingly, we usually get better faster.
One important point about shoulder problems is that sometimes they're slow to heal. Some of the shoulder muscles and ligaments have a notoriously poor blood supply, which means that some shoulder issues require a great amount of patience, resolve, and self-control. Just because the pain begins to go away does not mean that the shoulder's completely healed. But if a man hasn't completely bought in to the prospect of care, he might go disc golfing again too soon, which could reaggravate the problem (depending on the diagnosis, of course).
Here's an idea: if your husband isn't ready for health care yet, how about asking him to just pop by my office and chat for a few minutes about his shoulder problems? Our conversation would be free and he wouldn't feel pressured into anything. In fact, he might consider it a "fact-finding" mission where he visits three or four chiropractors in town, checks out their offices, and gets a feel for their personalities.
Otherwise, if your husband is already familiar with chiropractic and just can't seem to find the time to come in, it's just a matter of dropping well-timed (and loving) hints until he comes to the decision on his own. |
