What Causes Pain

The body is a three dimensional web of organs held together by the fascia. Injury, illness, arthritis, poor alignment, the reasons to seek relief are numerous. While myofascial release techniques are best implemented by a practitioner, some home exercises can also be effective. Here are a few myofascial release techniques that be done alone using a specific sport medicine foam roll and the weight of your body.

General GuidelinesAllow one to two minutes per position. When you reach a trigger point, focus on steady breathing and hold on it for thirty to forty seconds until the pain has decreased by roughly seventy-five percent. Try to keep abdominal and core muscles ridged to support the lower lumbar, pelvis and hips. Practice the exercises one to two times daily until results are achieved.

Plantar Fascia-The band of connective tissue that connects the toes to the Achilles tendon is the plantar fascia. Using a ball and your body weight, place your shoeless foot on top of the ball and roll the back and forth along the length of the plantar fascia. Balance yourself with a hand against a wall if necessary.

Gastrocnemius/SoleusOn the back of the calf, this is the tissue that runs from the sides of the knee and runs into the Achilles tendon. Using a roll, sit on the ground with legs straight, calves on top of the roller, and arms planted behind to elevate the buttocks off the ground. Roll back and forth, keeping knees locked and focus pressure on the lateral heads of the gastrocnemius muscle. To increase pressure, cross one leg over the other or pull the toes in toward the shins.

Triceps-These extend from the upper arm bone (superior humerus) and scapulae to the ulna and lower arm bone. Lying on your side, extend your arm above your head and place the roller against the back of your upper arm. Roll over the entire surface of the upper arm. For longer range motion, slide your torso along the ground.

Iliotibial Band Release-Lie on your side with the foam roll under your lower hip. Bottom leg should be raised off the floor, head in a neutral position and ears aligned with shoulders. Roll from just below the hip joint to the knee, along the outside thigh. This one can be painful and calls for moderation.

Wrist Flexors-The wrist flexor muscles enter the palm of the hand and underside of the fingers locations on the ulna, radius and humerus. Sitting on a bench with the tennis ball in one hand, press it against the opposite forearm and roll it back and forth in small sections. For additional pressure, extend the hand to stretch the wrist flexors.

Infraspinatus and Teres Minor-This runs from the scapula to the humerus. Lying on floor with upper arm flat and lower arm at ninety degrees to it, pin the ball between your shoulder blade and the floor. Move your lower arm back and forth while keeping the elbow in place. This will internally and externally rotate the shoulder.

When choosing a roller, keep in mind that an excess of pressure can lead to fatigue of the nearby supporting musculature. Before beginning these techniques, be sure to consult a physician about pre-existing medical conditions such as pregnancy, illness or recent injury or surgery. If sharp pain or severe bruising occur, discontinue exercises.

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Everyone experiences muscle pain from time to time during their lifetime, but myofascial pain (MP) is chronic muscular pain that worsens with time. There are trigger points in every muscle, and this pain centers around them. When these points are touched, the patient feels pain and that pain can spread throughout the entire muscle.

It is not uncommon for MP to be in the lower back, neck, jaw, head, pelvis, legs or arms. There will be a deep aching in the muscle, pain that worsens, stiffness in the muscle or surrounding joints, knots in the muscle and the inability to sleep at night.

There are several different types of treatment that doctors use for MP. The three main treatments are trigger point injections, physical therapy and medications. There is no evidence that proves that one treatment is more effective than the other.

Doctors can do trigger point injections by inserting a needle into the trigger point in the muscle. Sometimes it is necessary to insert the needle several times in and around the trigger point before the patient experiences relief. In some cases the doctor will inject a numbing medication or a corticosteroid into the painful trigger point.

Physical therapists are able to work with a patient and devise a plan that will help relieve the muscular pain. Stretching is one of the methods they use. The therapist will teach you stretching exercises that can help relax the muscle and ease the pain. If you experience pain while doing the exercises, the therapist may spray a local numbing medication over the area.

Another treatment physical therapists like to use is massage. By massaging alongside of the painful muscles and pressing firmly on the trigger points, they are able to relax the muscle and relieve the tension inside of it.

Finding out the cause of the muscle pain is an important part of the physical therapist’s treatment. By knowing the cause, the patient can work to correct it and, thus, avoid having the problem again. Sometimes it is something as simple as incorrect posture that is causing pain in a back muscle. The patient would then need to work at correcting his posture.

Many times medications are used in the treatment of MP. There are two main medications that doctors prefer. For some people NSAIDS or nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs work well. These can be purchased over the counter in forms such as naproxen or ibuprofeno or in more concentrated form with a doctor’s prescription.

There are simple treatments that you can do for yourself at home that will help relieve the pain caused by MP. Whenever your pain lessons a bit, do gentle exercises. The doctor or physical therapist can tell you which exercises will benefit you the most.

Pain will increase when the patient is under stress or is tense for some reason. Relaxing techniques and anything that helps take their mind off of the pain will bring a certain degree of relief. Some things that may help are talking on the phone to a friend, writing what they are feeling in a journal and taking the time to relax each muscle.

Any persisting muscular pain may be myofascial pain, and a doctor should be seen. Besides what the doctor recommends, do the proper exercises and relaxing techniques. There is relief from this type of pain, and it is not life threatening.

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Chiropractic patients commonly seek out care for an ache or pain. Understandable isn’t it? Patients believe that as soon as their pain is gone, they will be better. The irony is patients do not actually come in because of pain. People in pain become patients when pain starts to prevent them from activities they love to do. Pain becomes a motivator to take action so they can return to a certain quality of life. The wellness revolution is in full swing. As we gain a stronger understanding of human potential we see a tremendous capacity for longevity and the expression of vibrant life. Scientists have discovered isolated populations of people that live extremely long lives without any evidence of disease (120-150 years). Most people will spend more money on their “health” in the last two weeks of their life than they do their entire lives!Dr. Eric Plasker said it best, “Many people spend the first 50 years of their lives ignoring their health while they accumulate wealth, only to spend the next 50 years losing their wealth to buy back their health. Knowing that your longevity potential is 100 years gives you an opportunity to place your health at the top of your value scale.”

Who wants to “manage” their pain? Wouldn’t you rather have it gone? More importantly wouldn’t you rather understand why its there in the first place so you can prevent it from returning? Americans have had enough with drugs and surgery. As a society we are fed up with the options that medicine gives us. There are only three options in the medical world. 1. Live with it. 2. Take a drug and hope the side effects aren’t worse than the pain. 3. Have surgery and perhaps you will feel better but “maybe not.” Who’s going to gamble on those odds? This is by no means a medical bashing article. This is a description of a philosophy of health care that is failing when it comes to pain patients. There are countless medical heroes and much of their work is life saving. However, they also miss the “forest for the trees” sometimes. When a patient comes in with pain, this is a great opportunity to educate them. Chiropractic care and medicine belong in two entirely different philosophical camps. Lets explore the metaphysical stance of each or the nature of reality that each branch of health care operates on. Medicine is a reductionist model. They attempt to break the human body down into its simplest form or parts. They study cells, tissues, organs, biochemical pathways etc…separately. Each is its own branch of science. Medicine asks the question is the body producing too much or too little of a something. Further, they ask if there is a chemical they can add to the body or something they can remove surgically so that homeostasis can return?

Chiropractors teach that the human body is a self-healing and self-regulating “organism” and certainly more than the sum of our collective parts. Our organs, tissues, cells and emotions all interact dynamically to create a living and thriving being. How can we attempt to reduce a creature so advanced into a double blind randomized control trial? We absolutely cannot! To do so ignores the essence of human existence and our position atop the animal kingdom. We are capable of emotions and complex thought. We can conceptualize time and space. No other creature can do so. Humans belong in a holistic model for the very nature of holism considers the dynamic interaction of the three facets of health: structure, biochemistry and emotions. Structure includes our cells, organs, bones, muscles, tissues and the nervous system. Biochemistry includes chemical reactions, toxicity, the food we eat and the air we breathe. Emotions include our thoughts, stressors, and “head chatter” the 2500 words per minute which streams through our conscious brain telling us who we are and what we are capable of. One system cannot function independently of the other. When each system works synergistically with the other, without disturbance, vitality exists and the body can thrive.

What happens when one of the three branches of human health becomes stressed (structure, chemistry or emotions)? Do you think it has a direct affect on another system? Absolutely! An EMPHATIC YES! Is it possible that emotional stress in the body can have a deleterious effect on the body and compromise the structure of the musculoskeletal system? You bet! Often this manifests as pain. The medical profession puts a band-aid on the pain metaphorically. They cover up said pain with anti-inflammatory pills, pain killers and life numbing, life robbing drugs. The root of the problem was emotional stress however for this example! The drugs yank the batteries out of the smoke detector and make the patient believe nothing is wrong! Meanwhile, the house is still on fire! Any surprise why the pain keeps returning? The diagnosis was blown! The emotional stress was the real cause of the problem. Do emotions affect biochemistry in the body? Has anyone ever made you so mad that it felt like your blood was boiling? Does this raise your blood pressure? SURE! If an individual lives in a chronic state of emotional overdrive, is it likely they will have high blood pressure? YES!

It is the fundamental answer to the confusion associated with chronic pain and it is the title of the article. Pain is NOT your problem! It is not! Pain is an invaluable protective mechanism. It is a symptom which functions to prevent further damage from occurring in the body. Pain only makes up 10% of the nervous system. The majority of the nervous system operates silently and thanklessly. When the health of the body is threatened, pain is there to warn us to “listen up!” Society demands productivity, it is no secret. We have been methodically trained to ignore pain. We learned from an early age that pain equals weakness. Our mothers, fathers, teachers, preachers, coaches and big pharmacy told us to “suck it up, walk it off, be tough, don’t rub it, take an aspirin etc…”

*Whisper* we were LIED to! This is a dirty little secret. We never learned to question the origin of our aches and pains. We were never taught sensory acuity to our bodies. You probably believe it is normal for aches and pains to appear out of the blue sky. This is absolutely not true! These aches and pains only seem random for an externally driven person. The eternal victim and “why me” type of person. The external person blames the state of their heath and their circumstance on bad luck, bad germs and bad genes. When we have aches and pains on the outside, this is a mirror image of what is going on within our bodies. Aches and pains serve as progressive sirens. They warn us to listen up because the health of the system is compromised. The longer you ignore the root cause of the problem, the louder the sirens get. If you suffer from chronic pain, you have struggled with implementation of a proper exercise and nutrition program. You have not taken into consideration how your emotional health and stability influence your physical state. As an externally driven person you have been unaware of these contributions to poor health because nobody has told you. Forgive yourself. More importantly stop feeling sorry for yourself. Because I care about you so much and you deserve to express and experience life at an optimal level pay attention. Take massive action and challenge yourself.

Pain is your wake up call that screams at you to change your life and take control. Pain demands that you exchange your lower level behaviors for ones that serve you better. As you work to isolate the “why” you are in pain, you start the process of deepening your understanding of health. A mind once expanded can never contract to its original size. You cannot unring a bell! The more you embrace the process and take massive action, the stronger and more internally drive you will become. These actions lead to knowledge which, when combined with experience, lead to personal power!

The investment in your own health and in chiropractic care is a proactive and preventative action. By taking such extraordinary action and shifting your paradigm of health, you break free from an outdated belief system that has not been serving you. When you join a gym and they give you a membership card, does it come with a guarantee that you will get leaner and stronger by joining? Of course great looks and a clean bill of health not guaranteed. Their is an investment of your energy and effort required. No different than life, you must show up, sweat and participate! Keep this in mind. In life you are either the “observed” or the “observer.” Observed people live internally and consciously. Each and every patient in my office pays cash for their care for this reason. Practice members at Transformation Chiropractic choose to live optimally for as long as possible because they value life. My educated patients appreciate that they must be committed to their health and to their treatment plan to get the most out of care. They enjoy the journey that is wellness. There is no pinnacle to wellness or point where you have “made it.” As long as you remain on the journey, the value and results last. The only absolute destination in life is death. Human potential is how we choose to utilize the interim. When we hold ourselves accountable to achieving said potential and we choose to live internally, this is our free will!

Dr. Shaun Stuto is a missoula wellness doctor and owner/founder of Transformation Chiropractic. Transformation Chiropractic is a chiropractic wellness center in downtown Missoula, Montana. Visit our site today and learn more about how you can start creating a life of abundant health.

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