Have Pain on the Brain?

We’ve all experienced pain at one point or another. Whether your discomfort comes from an injury or an underlying cause, you can’t dismiss it. To make matters worse, pain can fluctuate from being manageable one moment to excruciating the next. As you continue to read, you may be rationalizing the thought, “Is pain really a crucial factor in my everyday life?” In certain circumstances, it undoubtedly is.“Pain is the last thing to show up and the first thing to go away,” stated Casey Reardon, DC. Providing chiropractic services for The Primary Health Network since 2014, Dr. Reardon shared that unknown issues in the body are a primary source of pain. Reardon continued, saying, “For example, having misalignments in your spine or having a silent disease, such as pancreatic cancer, can cause pain. By the time it’s discussed, you’re already at stage four, blindsided, because you had no symptoms or warning signs, and now, it’s too late.”We shouldn’t depend on pain as an indicator to get help. We maintenance our cars and other objects we rely on every day, so why do we not give our body the same courtesy?“If you don’t take care of your spine, and maybe your back doesn’t hurt for years, but by the time it does start hurting, you have severe arthritis and stenosis, and there is really no way to undo that,” shared Dr. Reardon. “It can be very debilitating pain that requires surgery and injections, or maybe nothing really helps it at all. It’s a much harder thing to deal with than a small functional problem of a bone not moving right or a tight muscle, which is a lot easier to fix.”“As long as you’re dealing with gravity and you’re lifting, bending, and twisting every day, there’s always a chance that something is going to give out, especially if there’s a weak spot from an old injury or anything that’s not completely strong enough to handle all of the stresses of everyday life,” Dr. Reardon stated.As long as there is mechanical stress on your body, pain will occur. However, pain can be very deceptive. One day you can experience sharp pains in your lower back, and before you know it, the pain is gone. But, is it really? If we keep overlooking it and believing that nothing is wrong, the underlying problem will continue to develop, since we are reliant on pain as the first indicator to get help.Chiropractic care is beneficial for keeping our body balanced, flexible, and functioning at its best. Some of the benefits chiropractic care offers are evident, but people may not realize it’s beneficial for carpal tunnel and jaw problems. “Carpal tunnel is caused by the nerve from the neck to the hand getting squeezed. By keeping the neck moving and keeping those muscles at their proper tone, so they aren’t in spasm and they aren’t real weak, prevents that nerve from being squeezed at the neck.”“For the jaw, there are a lot of muscles around the jaw, and doing work on those muscles can balance things out. So, again, by keeping the neck moving, you don’t cause neurological abrasions and noise and pain signals that would affect the nerve and then the jaw. There are other peripheral things, too, but keeping the neck in line is a big part of keeping both of those intact,” Dr. Reardon shared.If you would like more information, or to schedule a visit with Dr. Reardon, please contact Greenville Community Health Center at 724-588-5250 or visit our website at www.primary-health.net .