If you are a parent or ever had the joy of babysitting a small child you know the sound of them playing in the next room is a comforting feeling. When it all of a sudden gets quiet is when you get that feeling that something is amiss, and the cat is getting a haircut. Seems like an odd analogy here to make for chiropractic care and back pain, but stick with me.
It is not uncommon for back pain to come and go. I am using back pain as an example but of course neck pain, sciatica, arm pain etc. apply to this too. A subluxation, which is a misalignment of your spine, causes pressure on the exiting nerve roots. This pressure causes pain and a miscommunication to the organ the nerve is supplying. That organ may be your stomach or your leg/arm. Of course pain is typically our indicator, because pain is not normal. But you can have decreased function of an organ with this nerve compression also. Which is why athletes getting adjusted is so common and beneficial to them. It makes their body perform correctly and enhances their performance. All those professional teams have chiropractors on staff for a reason.
As you move throughout the day your spine is constantly moving and the joints are flexing opened and closed. This is changing the amount of pressure you will have on this nerve root, therefore changing the amount of pain you are experiencing. Have you ever had a stiff neck when you wake up and you can turn one way but not the other without pain? That is a subluxation. That bone is rotated one way and when you turn into it you pinch the nerve more and cause more pain.
So now a couple days have passed and you did the traditional over the counter pain reliever routine and you’re all better. Nope!!! Your pain has gone away but the problem hasn’t. I often see patients that have had this pain that comes and goes for years and then finally they come crawling, literally, into my office. Back to the analogy, the clatter from the room next door of the child playing has stopped, but the problem hasn’t gone away, and may have just gotten bigger. Pain that comes and goes are like warning shots over the bow of your ship. It is telling you something needs to be checked out by an expert, like a chiropractor. Chiropractors spend their entire careers focused on just spinal originating pain and symptoms. It’s what we love to do, well at least I love to do it. So much that it’s all I do in my office. I don’t do nutrition or diets or the new fads that come along. Just things that will benefit my patients with their pain and symptoms.
Chiropractic adjustments alleviate the “pinch” on the nerve that causes pain.