“Pain, who needs it!”

 “Pain, who needs it!”

As a chiropractor my main goal is initially helping my patients reduce or eliminate pain! 

When it comes to pain, it’s usually the last thing to appear and the first thing to resolve.  To elaborate on the fact that “it’s the last thing to appear”, I use the analogy of the “drop in the bucket theory”.  Most conditions don’t just appear one day, it’s usually a build up like drops filling a rain bucket, you don’t realize that your bucket is full until the last drop falls in and it overflows!  An example that I’ve seen in practice is the patient that sneezes and throws out their lower back.  The cause of the back pain isn’t the action of sneezing; it’s the misalignment of the vertebrae in the spine that pinches spinal nerves which is caused by lack of strength of the muscles around the spine that can be attributed to lack of proper posture.  The act of sneezing just causes the build up to overflow.  So you see it’s not always so cut and dry, everything is cumulative.

Where the patient points to as the area that they perceive to be causing them pain more times than not is not the source of the problem.  In dealing with the human body I have to understand the many ways that pain can refer and radiate to various areas outside of the area of complaint. 

Pain can radiate like that of a sciatic condition.  Here the problem stems from pressure in the pelvic area on the sciatic nerve.  As a result the pain is perceived down the leg into the foot. The cause is usually a structural imbalance like a fallen arch in the foot that over time causes the muscles around the sciatic nerve to become out of balance and eventually pinch off the nerve. 

Referred pain is common. It's defined as pain from a malfunctioning or diseased area of the body, perceived in another area, often far from where it originated. An example is found in a person having a heart attack. They often have pain down the inside of the left arm and forearm.  This same pattern of pain down the arm can also occur from nerves being pinched in the neck area.  This is why it takes the professional assessment of someone like a chiropractor or medical doctor to discern between the two.

It’s important to note that as easily as pain may refer from these areas to the spine, it also works in the opposite direction as well.  It’s like a two way street.  Pressure on spinal nerves can mimic the same pain and lead to problems in the related organs.

The next area to look at is the spine.  It’s composed of 31 pairs of spinal nerves surrounded by 24 movable bones called vertebra.  The chiropractic principals emphasize that if you attain and maintain proper spinal alignment you will then optimize health and help reduce or eliminate pain.  When pressure is applied to any of these nerves by a disc, bone or inflammation it will cause decreased function to the areas that the nerve supplies.  This is like stepping on a running garden hose, if you step on it there’s going to be less water coming out of the spout.  This will lead to less water for your garden and eventually wilted vegetables.  Thus, the flow of nerve impulses is imperative to the items that it’s controlling on the other end, like muscles, skin, and organs. 

In summary, pain is a “RED ALERT” indicator that something in the body is going wrong!  The goal should be reduce the pain, but most importantly find the cause and fix it.