Treating pain, in my opinion, is a high calling. Not that it makes for a better profession, I just think it is an important undertaking.
I specify this notion because sometimes chiropractors downplay pain and act like they are called to something higher. It’s true that pain is basically a “message” that something else has gone wrong. Pain is a big clue that helps to lead us to the source of a problem or clues us in that there is a problem.
I’ve heard chiropractors say, “I don’t care about pain and symptoms; I want to find and fix subluxations.” Or, “I am passionate about treating the cause and not the symptom.” Fortunately, I don’t think that is the view of the majority of the chiropractic profession, as I think it is out of touch with patients and reality. When I was in chiropractic school, there was a philosophical notion that treating pain was somewhat second-class to treating other things.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with that belief, but what it tends to lead to a lack of interest in the pain literature and research. It wasn’t until after graduating that I began to study pain more thoroughly and realized what a fascinating and relevant field it is. As a doctor, I think it is important and responsible to search for the cause of symptoms but I am very passionate as well about symptom relief because patients are passionate about symptom relief.
Pain has so many implications to our human experience. It is one of the primary, deep-seated motivators and drivers from the limbic system along with sex, hunger, thirst, fear, emotions, etc. Pain can have a significant effect on our endocrine system (hormones) and greatly alter our psychological state. The prevalence of pain has a tremendous impact on business, with a recent report by the Institute of Medicine indicating that the annual value of lost productivity in 2010 dollars ranged between $297.4 billion to $335.5 billion.[1]
The following statistics highlight the significant number of people in the US in pain and the impact of business and society[2]:
- More than half of Americans live with chronic or recurrent pain.
- Leading causes of recurrent or persistent pain affecting Americans are headache pain, back pain, and neck pain.
- About 4 in 10 Americans say pain interferes with their mood, activities, sleep, ability to do work or enjoyment of life. Two-thirds report interference with any one of these.
For those philosophically inclined, it can be easy to devalue pain. For those with a more patient-centered approach, pain relief care becomes a very real and rewarding part of practice.
If only it were as easy as taking anti-inflammatory and muscle relaxant medication or more powerful opioid drugs like oxycontin, that are all too frequently prescribed. For those that these medications work well for, that is great! Unfortunately, they are not nearly as effective as we’d like, and some of the drugs can lead to other issues of dependence and substance abuse.
In a study by Kirkaldy-Willis, 171 patients had been totally disabled by chronic low-back pain for an average of 7.8 years. Following a 2-3 week regimen of daily chiropractic manipulation, 87% RETURNED TO FULL FUNCTION with no restricions for work or other activities. Approximately one year later the patients were re-examined…the success rate was maitained! [3]
We live in a time and place of pain promotion. The standard American diet is a pain promoting diet. Our jobs are pain promoting jobs. Our stress levels are at pain promoting levels. The best solution, most of the time, is to find the dysfunction that pain is telling us about and make the necessary correction. But there are pain controlling options that can benefit those who just can’t make the change or need some pain relief in the process of making the change.
Chiropractic adjustments can reduce or eliminate the amount of pain you are experiencing by decreasing the amount of pain signals being sent to the brain. If it is a biomechanical problem, such as with movement or posture, some chiropractors will take the additional time to show you how to “spare” those tissues.
- Institute of Medicine of the National Academies Report. Relieving Pain in America: A Blueprint for Transforming Prevention, Care, Education, and Research, 2011. The National Academies Press, Washington DC. (page 260)http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=13172&page=260
- Poll: Americans Searching for Pain Relief. New Poll Shows Nearly Four in 10 American Adults Suffer From Pain on a Regular Basis http://abcnews.go.com/images/Politics/979a1TheFightAgainstPain.pdf
- Kirkaldy-Willis, W. & Cassidy, J., “spinal manipulation in the treatment of low-back pain,”Can Fam Physician 31:535-50, 1985.
