Who gets well? These are observations from my 39 years of chiropractic practice. They apply specifically to the kinds of conditions that patients come to the chiropractor for.
One of the most important axioms of health care is, “First, do no harm.” This applies both to you as the suffering patient, and to your doctors.
If you are managing your pain with long term anti-inflammatory medicine, with steroids, or with opioids; you are likely to be doing yourself harm. I am not the judge or jury, but, there are usually alternatives.
What about your lifestyle? Are you doing yourself daily harm? If you have to sit at work, are you taking frequent movement and standing breaks. Do you get enough exercise and proper movement?
Are you doing the right exercises? People in pain often create or reinforce their own pain, by doing the wrong exercises. For lower backs, some patients need to avoid ANY forward bending exercises, at least temporarily. For hip or groin pain, many need to avoid opening the hips, avoid stretching the groin. I call this addition by subtraction.
Do you know how to get up and down in a chair safely, do you know how to safely tie your shoes? Are you slouching while you sit, or to look at your phone? Simple things can be so profound. You cannot get well, if you are continually re-injuring yourself.
Are you afraid to move, afraid to exercise; for fear that you will hurt yourself? On the other extreme, do you push yourself to the max, and then hurt yourself, over and over. Pacing is so important.
What about attitude? Do you believe that you can get better? Our body/mind/spirit are one. If you can’t see your way forward, you can’t move forward. Some people walk around with a memory or picture of their problem in their mind’s eye, which blocks them. The obvious example is degenerative changes or arthritis in the spine. As you age, you know you are going to get gray hair and wrinkles. You are also going to have wear and tear in our spines. This does not necessarily correlate with or cause your pain. I get so upset with doctors who have installed pain pictures into patients’ minds.
Let’s talk about diagnosis and misdiagnosis. I see so many patients who, in hindsight, did not have an accurate diagnosis. My goal is to find out what exact problem is causing your pain, and come up with a program to help you solve this. This almost always involves specific exercise on your part. Do you know what activities or exercises give you relief? This is Pain 101.
Come see us for a different view, and different answers for your painful muscles and joints and nerves.
