Ask a Pain Relief Pro| Pain is a Signal - Part Two
Have you been stuggling with chronic pain? Are you tired of riding the merry-go-round, trying the same pain relief techniques without lasting results?
Perhaps it's time to consider the radical concept that your physicl pain has NOTHING to do with:
- your workout program
- the activites you do/sports you play
- your job, chair, desk,
- shoes, orthotics, or
- family genetics?
Today are going to explore part TWO of Pain is a Signal.
Chronic Pain might be your "Normal",
but it's certainly NOT Natural.
As a Posture Alignment Specialist (Egoscue University Certified) I'm continually amazed how many people I see who suffer years of continuous, long-term, high level pain. Then there are others who experience intermittent but severe pain that is cyclical in nature.
Eventually in both cases, their pain management techniques begin to fail and they arrive at Pain Free Posture MN ready to explore the new paradigm of health care.
Either way, it's not unusual for an individual to get so used acute and chronic aches and pains that one begins to think it's normal and just a part of life and aging.
We rationalize our physical with urban myths and legends (I have my mother's bad hips, my dad's bad feet, I was born this way, it's just a part of getting old, etc) and in affect stop acknowledging it and learn to live with it. Chronic musculoskeletal and joint pain may be your "normal", but I promise you it's not natural or they way we were designed to exist!
PAIN is the body’s only way of telling us that something is WRONG.
Just think of an open flame. Put your hand over the heat, you'll recoil and pull away quicly! Thankfully we humans are hardwired to avoid pain and that's a good thing when it comes to danger.
But what about pain in our bodies? Really, it isn't any different. When we experience acute physical pain we stop. The body says I hurt, stop what your doing and pay attention to me. Fix the problem – now!
But here's where the break-down in the system occurs. Our western paradigm of health care has taught us to symptomatically address the pain and make it go away by medicating, manipulating and/or surgery.
Problem with that thought process is the symtpmatic and cyclical approach to pain management. I we don't address the underlying root cause, the pain always comes back to visit us and we're at square one all over again. Time to get on the merry-go-round. Before we can successfully address the pain, we have to figure out what got us to this condition in the first place and that's where Postural Therapy stops the merry-go-round and sets you onto a straight path to follow.
All human beings share the same basic blue-print design. Aside from rare genetic abnormalities, we all have the same muscles, bones, nerves, etc. and our bodies are designed for motion.
We were built to walk, run, jump, twist and climb. We are designed to comfortably stand upright, bear our own weight and to rely on joints that have a range of motion. Because of this we can lift a box, pick up our children or run a marathon.
VIOLATE Blue-Print design, Pain will follow!
The good news (and bad) is that our bodies adapt to our own life circumstances.
Our adaptability means we can change for the better. We’ve all heard stories of people improving their lives by becoming more active. Exercise is part of any doctor’s prescription for health and that's good!
The other side of that coin is that our bodies will also adjust to inactivity and incorrect stimulus and demand. The less we use our bodies the less able we are to move our bodies. And the more we move in incorrect movement patterns, the greater we strengthen compensations and dysfunctions.
When blue-print design function fails, we see load joint imbalances. Load joint imbalances lead to postural dysfunctions and compensations and it's only a matter of time until chronic pain and the risk of injury follow.
Please join me again as we wrap up this series Pain is a Signal! I'll be giving you practical ways to identify if your body is our of balance and what you can do to address it.
If you enjoyed this BLOG, please SHARE it with others!
At Pain Free Posture MN, we believe in living life to the fullest! Your life should be PAIN FREE - fun, full of energy, and uniquely about you.
If it doesn't feel that way for you, give me a call.
Posture Alignment Therapy can help you resolve your musculoskeletal pain naturally without medication, manipulation or surgery.
If you don't know what to do, don't worry. I can help you get going again. I promise. We're in this together, and I am here to help.