For many, ocean waves are calming. For Carrolltown neck pain and back pain patients, feeling the wave of healing pain relief can be the same if they are aware of it. For those who do not understand that pain waxes and wanes while healing, the wave of healing can be frustrating. Gormish Chiropractic & Rehabilitation helps our patients appreciate the wave of healing, recognize the research supporting our relieving treatment plan, and celebrate the pain relief they get.
DESCRIBING AND RATING PAIN
Since back and neck pain experiences are complete with fluctuating symptoms as they heal, researchers have worked on a method to classify neck pain patients and their pain patterns by tracking 1208 neck pain patients. They produced 16 subgroups! Wow. The biggest subgroup was “mild persistent fluctuating” with 25% of the patients in it rating their pain as a 3.4 out of 10 (0 no pain). The “moderate episodic” group had 24% reporting pain at a 2.7. “Persistent fluctuating” pain patients were those bothered more by pain than the others. (1) Instead of just describing and rating pain, researchers had patients describe their pain using a visual picture scale about their pain intensity and symptomatology over a year. The patient responses were very similar in explaining the pain intensity but not so much for the symptoms and their characteristics. (2) Gormish Chiropractic & Rehabilitation finds that everybody feels pain in slightly different ways and that they find certain types of pain more annoying than others do. All of our Carrolltown chiropractic patients are distinctive!
THE HEALING “WAVE”
For a year, another study followed 1124 neck pain patients who saw a chiropractor. Neck pain patients experiencing “persistent pain” – 75% to 63% over 12 months - and very minor pain remained relatively stable. Those who had “episodic pain” – 21% to 24% over the year – had greater changes in their pain patterns. (3) This is why we tell our back and neck pain patients that recovery is more wavelike than a straight line. While healing, pain ebbs and flows. Going away more than it comes is a positive signal of healing and pain relief. Gormish Chiropractic & Rehabilitation repeatedly tells our Carrolltown neck pain and back pain patients to not be discouraged along the way. We’ll get there together!
CHIROPRACTIC IN MANAGING BACK AND NECK PAIN PATTERNS
Research such as explained here regarding the patterns of neck pain and back pain sufferers reflects the on-going need for them to have partners like their chiropractors along with general practitioners to handle it, understand it, and care for it. One researcher explained how a patient who underwent spinal surgery 30 years ago now experienced neck pain and cervical arm pain due to adjacent segment disease – a condition often seen in spinal discs above and below a spinal level that underwent back surgery - was treated with cervical manipulation, flexion distraction decompression (Cox®), soft-tissue mobilization, and therapeutic ultrasound for resolution of pain. (4) Again, pain relief is seldom sudden, but rather systematic with treatment, coming/going pain intensity, patience, and appreciation for the relief gotten be it 50%, 70% or 90% as explained by the 50% Rule of Cox® Technic.
CONTACT Gormish Chiropractic & Rehabilitation
Listen to this PODCAST with Dr. John Murray on The Back Doctors Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson as he shares patient cases that were complicated and yet attained relief with The Cox® Technic System of Spinal Pain Management with time.
Schedule your Carrolltown chiropractic appointment soon. Together, we will work toward the calming wave of healing and celebrate the pain relief.
