Ever wonder why you take pain pills and it just takes an edge off or does not work at all?
Then you go to injections and it might help for 1 week to 6 months. And the pain returns, and you feel like you are back to square one or that you have no control because you put the control in a drug or injection. No wonder we have an opioid epidemic.
When I use to market to doctors, I would ask what do you do when you have someone with back pain, knee pain, neck pain? They would say they give them drugs or send them to pain management (aka more drugs). This was 75% of all the doctors I marketed in the past 10+ years. They did not know how we could help or empower their patients with education to help themselves.
Did you know that research shows that only 8% of all back pain patients ever get to physical therapy? Yet the research shows, when you find an expert, that patients spend less money and time with the injury and less disability when they are sent to a physical therapist first. Research also shows in the short-term Drugs can help, but longer-term you are worse off.
Let’s talk about how we feel pain and why we are usually treating the symptoms and not getting to the source of the problem.
We feel pain in 3 ways: Chemical, Mechanical, and Thermal Pain. We will take Thermal pain out of the picture because that is burns or sun burns.
Chemical Pain is swelling and inflammation. Chemicals from our body come in to help with the repair process. This is the achy and throbbing pain. You cannot move into any position that gives you relief and it is a constant throbbing pain.
Mechanical pain is our mechanics of movement and how our body operates. Such as compensation that leads to injury. Repeated use injuries leading to injury. A tear in the muscle, meniscus, labrum can all create changes the mechanics. You cannot fix mechanics with drugs. You have to fix the mechanics (what you are doing that is creating the problem). This pain can be either intermittent pain or constant pain. With mechanical pain, you can change your position and make your pain better or worse.
So, if you purely have Chemical pain only, then chemicals treat chemicals. You will get relief. If you have Mechanical pain then you have to treat the mechanics. Drugs will not work and will not give you relief. You are not working on the right problem.
You can have both a chemical and mechanical problem. This is when drugs helped, but then the pain returned. Most of the time you have a mechanical problem that must be addressed, but often it never is. Patients are not sure what they did to create the pain, but pain now stops them from Living their LIFE. You need to talk to a mechanics (aka a Good Physical Therapist). Drugs are often the first choice for pain, but you might be treating the wrong problem.
Does this sound Familiar? Just because you have arthritis/degeneration does not mean that is where your pain is coming from. Degeneration is the aging process, it is like getting wrinkles on our face.
Here are questions you can ask yourself to see if drugs or physical therapy is your right choice or if drugs will actually work for you:
Is your pain intermittent or do you have pain every minute of the day? Can you move into a position that makes your pain better or worse?
Intermittent pain or movement can change your pain level either better or worse, then it is not chemical. It is mechanical. You need to have a conversation with one of our movement specialists.
Did you know that we have monthly Workshops for FREE where we tailor the education to those that show up. We keep them small. Or if you want our FREE Back or Knee Pain Tips Report to Resolving your pain to get your LIFE BACK, shoot us an email (info@mpower-pt.com) or give us a call and we can get those to your inbox!
