What is the cause of my pain?
Most people go to a chiropractor because they are in pain and have been for awhile. They want pain relief but they should want to know where the pain is coming from. As a chiropractor, people tend to think that we just work on the spine and make sure it is aligned and that you are moving correctly. Well, that is partly true but we also are on the hunt for where your pain is coming from. We want to find where it is coming from so that we can get to the cause and correct it, so pain does not return. Pain is present and felt in our body, for a reason. Pain is a warning sign from our brain telling us that something is wrong and that it needs to be addressed. Pain may come from many different sources including muscle, joint and nerve and as a medical professional, we want to look at all sources to determine the cause.
Our body is a system of joints, muscles and nerves that propel us through the day. Pain is generally a problem of both joint and muscle issues. As chiropractors, we look at your joints including your spine but also your elbows, hands, knees, and ankles and everything else that is moved by a muscle. Your spine has many joints, at each vertebrae and our spines protect the most important thing in our body: our spinal cord. The nerves that makes us move, that make us feel pain and that control our body are protected by our spine. Protecting our spinal cord is important so making sure there is no pain in our body is also important. When the joints are moving correctly, we can then look at what moves the joints and that is our muscles.
Muscle and connective soft tissue are the most commonly injured body part that causes pain and that can lead to a more chronic pain in our muscles, joints and body overall. Muscle can be overused, sore or tight due to many different factors and it is our job to find out why muscle becomes painful. Soft tissue therapies can help to alleviate acute and chronic muscle type pain while exercise is important to strengthen weak or underused muscle to form a better, stronger body.
Next time you have pain for more than 3 days, please seek out a professional opinion on what is causing the pain. Pain is a warning sign that when ignored, it only leads to further pain and future injury. If you are having musculo-skeletal pain now, give us a call and see if we can offer some pain relief and a cause for the reason the pain is present.