Neck Pain, Back Pain, and Chronic Pain Relief

Neck Pain and Back Pain are often due to movement based problems in the spine.

In part one of this series we discussed movement problems in the spine that change the way the vertebrae move which can be referred to as a spinal subluxation. In part two, we discussed how movement problems are common causes of pain and we began discussing how to improve the problem.

These abnormal movements are associated with pain… including often neck pain, back pain, and more.

Chiropractors use a different approach to spinal pain…

The ideas about mechanical or movement based problems in the spine due to motor control problems within the nervous system that we’ve discussed in part one and part two about spinal “subluxations” is very important.

These problems are identified by Chiropractors. A medical doctor doesn’t necessarily need to identify these problems as the treatment will be based on medications to change chemical pathways.

This is different from a Chiropractor who will use many different types of treatment based on movement, other therapies, and rehabilitation.

This one idea about differences in treatment approaches really helps us understand why an MD and a DC may look at problems (the diagnosis) and the solution (the treatment) differently.

It helps us better understand how there is potential confusion in medical practices when thinking about chiropractic. The paradigm about evaluating and treating these common spinal complaints of neck pain, back pain, and chronic pain is different between doctors of medicine and doctors of chiropractic.

A medical doctor will tend to think about a chemical problem or process while a chiropractor will tend to think of a mechanical or movement based problem. It’s natural given the common ways each of these two types of healthcare practitioners may treat someone for a painful condition.

Both approaches can help symptoms.

At times, using both will help a person recover. The problem we most often see in our practice though is that someone only relies upon pain relieving medications often for years without ever improving the underlying problem that causes that pain.

It’s critically important to note that we really need to address these underlying processes described historically in Chiropractic as spinal subluxations in order to improve function and movement in these problems.

Restating a prior point, movement based problems need a movement based treatment.

You can think about it this way, let’s say you have a broken bone close to your elbow that doesn’t allow you to move your elbow for maybe a few months so the bones can heal. It’s put in a cast to limit the motion.

The bone heals up and you get out of your cast. The problem is that your elbow hasn’t moved in many weeks. It’s painful to move it and it has lost a lot of it’s range of motion.

The only way that the motion is coming back is through working with it over time to restore the movement. This will take physical movements that you can do and that can be done with the help of a chiropractor or physical therapist.

You could take pain relievers to help with the pain.

These will not stretch the shrunken soft tissue from the immobilization. The medications also won’t help get the muscles that move the joint stronger or improve the neurological control of that joint. It will requires movements over a period of time to do this.

Think of the spinal problems we’ve been talking about in a similar way.

When we’re considering a joint in the spine that has lost it’s ability to move due to an injury of some type for example… over time it will have similar problems to the elbow in the example above. It may and probably will cause pain, tightness, stiffness, etc.

You can take medications to help the symptoms.

You also need to address the losses of motion or you won’t be able to move it and the pain very likely becomes both worse and chronic. Other problems develop including that you may develop other injuries in the area as the spine is not working properly and you put it under stress with your daily activities.

There are other problems beyond local neck or back pain that are likely to develop as well.

Having said all that, some Chiropractors like Dr. Hagebusch consider many different factors beyond the spinal movement problems in order to help a person get better. This is why Dr. Hagebusch has spent hundred’s of hours in post-doctorate functional neurology classes and more recently in functional medicine classes to better help his patients suffering from many problems get better.