Some back and neck pain needs a doctor today, not a chiropractor. Some back and neck pain is not a case for a chiropractor and needs a doctor the same day. Go to an emergency room, not to us, if you have numbness in the groin or inner thighs, if you have lost control of your bladder or bowels, if a leg is becoming weak rather than just painful, if the pain followed a serious fall or a car crash, if you have a fever with back pain, if you have unexplained weight loss alongside it, if you have a history of cancer, or if a headache came on suddenly and is the worst you have ever had. We would rather you rang your doctor and never rang us at all.
The work injuries that come through this door split fairly cleanly into two groups. There is the sudden one — a lift that went wrong, a slip on a wet floor, catching a falling load — which behaves much like any acute back or shoulder injury and usually settles on a similar timeline. And there is the accumulated one, which is far more common and much less dramatic: a back that has been lifting badly for three years, a shoulder that has been working overhead every day, a neck that has spent a decade at a screen.
The clinical treatment is not fundamentally different from anything else on this site — assess, treat, load, review. What is different is the context. There is an employer, usually an insurer, often a claim number, sometimes a case manager, and a set of questions about what you can safely do at work that need answering in writing rather than vaguely. Getting that part right is a large fraction of what makes a work injury go well or badly.
The single most important thing we can tell you is that staying at work in some capacity almost always beats being signed off entirely. People who remain in modified duty recover faster and return to full duties more reliably than people who stop completely, and the longer somebody is off, the harder returning becomes. So our default is a written list of what you can do rather than a note saying you cannot work, and we will argue for that with an employer if it helps.
The injuries we see most
Four patterns, from four quite different working days.
The lift that went wrong
Something heavy, at an awkward angle, usually with a twist in it, usually at the end of a shift. The acute low back injury that follows behaves like any other and usually settles over weeks. What matters afterwards is the lifting technique and the load that produced it, because the same job is waiting when you go back.
The shoulder that works overhead
Painters, electricians, warehouse staff, stylists, anybody whose arms live above shoulder height. These build slowly, they hurt at night, and they respond to a period of modified loading plus specific rotator cuff and shoulder blade work. Rest alone rarely fixes them because the job resumes unchanged. The shoulder pain page covers them in full.
The neck at a screen
Nine hours, head forward and down, for years. Genuinely a work injury even though nothing happened on any particular day. It responds to treatment, and it comes straight back unless the workstation and the break pattern change. A workstation assessment is often the most useful thing we do for these. The desk and workstation care page explains what that involves.
The slip or fall
Wet floors, ladders, ice, uneven ground. These need a fracture excluded before anybody treats them, particularly in older workers and anybody who landed on an outstretched hand or a hip. Once that is clear the management is straightforward, and the documentation matters because these are the most commonly disputed claims.
Getting back to work
Our default is modified duty, in writing, rather than time off.
Staying at work usually wins
People who stay in some form of work recover faster and return to full duties more reliably than people signed off completely, and the odds of returning at all fall sharply the longer somebody is away. Being off is not a neutral rest — it costs conditioning, routine, confidence and income. Our default is to find what you can do rather than to sign you off.
A written list of restrictions
Not a vague note. Specific: maximum lift, no overhead work above a certain height, no sustained bending beyond a set duration, sit-stand changes every half hour, no ladders. An employer can accommodate a specific list far more easily than they can interpret a general instruction to take it easy, and a specific list also protects you.
A schedule for lifting the restrictions
Restrictions with no end date become permanent by default and quietly turn into a reduced job. We set review points and progress the list as capacity returns, so there is a visible path back to full duties rather than an indefinite state that nobody revisits.
Fixing the thing that caused it
The job is waiting. If the injury came from how a task is done, the task has to change — technique, the height of a bench, a second person on a lift, a different tool, more frequent rotation. We will say what we think needs to change and put it in writing for your employer if that helps you make the case.
Workers' compensation, in practice
The administrative side, which is where these cases most often go wrong.
Report it, even if it seems minor
An injury that is not reported is very difficult to claim for later, and the accumulated injuries — the shoulder that built up over two years — are exactly the ones people fail to report because there was no single incident. Tell your employer, in writing, and keep a copy.
Bring the claim number
The claim number and the insurer are what let us bill correctly and what let treatment be authorised. Bring whatever your employer has given you to the first appointment. Without it we can still see you, but the billing has to be sorted out afterwards, which is harder for everybody.
Authorisation and reporting
Comp cases come with their own authorisation process and their own reporting requirements, and the paperwork is genuinely its own job. We handle it. What we need from you is accurate information about what happened and honest answers about what you can currently do.
We report what we find
Our reports say what the examination showed and what we think you can do, and they say it the same way whether the person reading them is you, your employer or an insurer. We will not exaggerate a restriction to help a claim and we will not minimise one to please an employer. That is the only version of this that is worth anything to anybody.
Work Injury Care in western Queens
Backs hurt at work more than anywhere else. Treatment, a realistic plan for getting back on the job, and the workers' compensation paperwork handled properly from the first visit.
Every course of care here starts the same way: a full hour, a proper history, an examination, and then a plain statement of what we think is going on and how confident we are about it. You are told what we propose, roughly how many visits it ought to take and what should have changed by when — and we agree a date to stop and look at whether it worked. If the honest answer at any point is that this needs somebody else, you get that instead, and we write to them the same week.
Chiropractic care is not a substitute for medical diagnosis. Chiropractic care is not a substitute for medical diagnosis, and nothing on this website is medical advice for your particular problem. We are not physicians: we do not prescribe medication, we do not perform surgery, and we do not treat disease. What we do is examine how your spine and joints move, work on them by hand, and give you something to do between visits. If your problem turns out to be outside that, we say so and refer you — which happens often enough that you should expect it as a normal outcome rather than a failure.
What chiropractic does not treat. We treat musculoskeletal problems: the spine, the joints, the muscles and the nerves that are irritated by them. We do not claim that adjusting a spine treats asthma, allergies, ear infections, colic, digestive disease, high blood pressure, infertility, immune function or any other internal illness. Chiropractors who make those claims are making them without good evidence, and you should be wary of anybody who does. If somebody has told you that spinal care will fix a condition on that list, we will tell you honestly that it will not.
Questions
Work Injury Care — the questions we are asked most
Should I take time off work?
Usually not completely, and this genuinely matters. People who stay in some form of modified duty recover faster and return to full duties more reliably than people who stop entirely, and the chance of returning at all falls the longer somebody is off. Our default is a specific written list of what you can do rather than a note saying you cannot work. Some injuries do need time off, and we will say so when yours is one.
Do I need a claim number before you will see you me?
No — we will see you either way and sort the billing out afterwards. But bringing the claim number, the insurer's details and whatever your employer has given you to the first appointment makes everything easier, gets treatment authorised faster, and avoids you being billed for something that should have been covered. If you have not reported the injury to your employer yet, do that first.
My injury built up over years rather than happening on one day. Does that count?
It can, and these are exactly the ones people fail to report because there was no single incident to point at. A shoulder from years of overhead work or a back from years of lifting is a work-related injury even without a specific accident. Report it to your employer in writing, keep a copy, and tell us the history in detail at the first visit because the timeline is what the claim rests on.
Will you write me a note saying I cannot work?
We will write an accurate account of what you can and cannot currently do, which is more useful to you than a blanket note and considerably more useful to your employer. If the examination shows you should not be working at all, that is what the note will say. What we will not do is write something that does not match what we found, in either direction.
Can my employer make me go back before I am ready?
That is an employment question rather than a clinical one, and we are not the right people to advise you on your rights. What we can do is document clearly and specifically what you are currently able to do, review it on a schedule, and update it as your capacity changes. A specific, dated, clinically justified list of restrictions is the most useful thing we can give you in that conversation.
How long do work injuries usually take?
An acute back or shoulder strain typically follows the same course as any other — substantial improvement over two to six weeks. Injuries that built up over years take longer, because the job that produced them is usually still there. The variable that matters most is not the injury itself but whether the task, the technique or the workstation actually changes.
Related
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Care after a collision, documented properly from the first visit. In New York, no-fault insurance usually covers this rather than your health plan — and some of its deadlines are short.
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Whiplash Care
The neck injury that is usually worse on day two than on the day itself. Early gentle movement beats a collar, and understanding what is happening genuinely speeds up recovery.
Read moreA fee agreed before the visit, not after it
Book an appointment
Pick a chiropractor and an hour from the calendar — it shows only the times each of them genuinely has free. A first visit is a full hour and costs $95 for the examination on its own, or $145 if we treat you at the same appointment. You decide which after the examination, not before.