07/12/2019
These are the issues that I think it is difficult for the average patient to understand. Pain is a biopsychosocial thing. It’s a melting pot of your body tissue and what’s happening within it or to it, your psychological interpretation of that, and how those two things are filtered through your social construct.
For so long we’ve been taught, as health care providers and as consumers, that pain is “bad” and needs to be cut out or erased through medication. And that pain means damage. It just plain doesn’t. And this is so culturally ingrained, that it is difficult as a provider (of any type) to educate a patient otherwise. It’s even hard for many to NOT give bad advice about pain.
Americans have a bad relationship with pain. The cultural sentiment that you should not have any at all is misguided. It’s naive. Pain is natural.
And we have a bad relationship with how to manage pain. Most pain (most not all) can be managed with activity, exercise. And mild conservative “resets”. I never understand the logic behind “we are going to help your pain by cutting into you, hacking part of you out, and then sewing you back together”. It not a sound PAIN management strategy.
Our country needs an expert, any expert, to be the expert in pain. “Pain Management” doctors aren’t cutting it. They’re just pill dispensers. Physicians don’t manage pain well (as a whole). No one does. Which leaves patients desperate to try anything and everything.
And this isn’t a commercial for chiropractic either. Many of the chiropractic providers are poor at explaining pain and how to manage it. And some even feel it is “beneath them” to even address or admit that they deal with a patients pain because it’s “just a symptom” and they have fantastical ideals that they care for so much more than that.
..Except musculoskeletal Pain is at EPIDEMIC levels in the world, and is worst in the USA, and is the main reason anyone would ever see a chiropractor.
So what advice could I possibly have for someone in pain? First off, finding someone who can address your pain appropriately can be a challenge. However, the first person and the best person is right there in the mirror. And they are the main person in the equation.
Next, you will need a proper guide to guide you through pain, and they can be hard to find. They aren’t defined by profession. They can be an MD, a PT, a Chiro, a DO. The letters don’t matter. The approach does.
Finally, the approach might not be what you expect. What they do TO you or prescribe TO you can help, but what they teach you to DO for yourself and the education they provide TO you is the most important. So it will seem like an unusual approach. But it’s the right one.
Finally: Your bone isn’t out of place (unless it’s dislocated). You aren’t having pain just because you’re old. It’s not your scoliosis or your posture alone. And it’s not “all in your head”. It’s part of the give and take of living as a human being. Respect it. Don’t ignore it. And if it effects you, do something about it.
Pain isn’t just about pain. It’s a bigger story than that.
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/12/america-experiences-more-pain-than-other-countries/548822/
A third of Americans have pain “often” or “very often”—here’s why.