If you know me or are a regular reader of my blog you have heard me say many times "the body works as a unit" or "the foot bones connected to the leg bone". I am a big believer that the body is a unit (which is a fact) and that you must treat the body as a unit. Every week I talk to new clients who explain they've been to multiple doctors, surgeons, sports medicine specialists, physical therapists, chiropractors, body workers, and other therapists and none of these experts have been able to help eliminate their pain.
The amazing thing to me is that most of these clients have no idea what is causing their pain or what they can do to become pain free even after talking to and working with many different experts. How can this be?
To understand what the client has been told and why all these other experts and treatments didn't work I like to ask questions like:
- What did they say was causing your pain?
- Why did they say your pain is only on one side?
- What did they say was causing the problem?
- What was the treatment/therapy focused on?
- How specifically did they say your hips/spine was out of alignment?
- Did the adjustments/therapy correct the imbalance?
- Did the treatment work? How do you know if it did or did not?
- What did they say was the problem when you weren't getting better?
- What did they recommend to do next?
- The never said what as causing the pain.
- The said the pain was because of the arthritis (or herniated disc or inflammation or ...).
- They said it happens with age.
- They said it's genetic.
- They never told me what they were focusing on or explained why they were doing what they were doing.
- They never told me how my hips/spine were out of alignment.
- I don't know if it worked, they told me they fixed the misalignment but it would just come back later.
- They said they fixed the alignment but the pain was still there.
- I got stronger but my pain was still there.
- They didn't say why my pain was still there.
- They didn't know what I should do next.
What is going on here? I think there are several things...
- First, a lot of these experts are acting like, well, experts. An expert talks in big fancy words and doesn't put the client on the same level. When two people are not on the same level there is missed information and communication is not effective.
- Second, these specialists are, well, specialists. They focus on their area of expertise which is often the knee, or back, or spinal alignment, and forget that the body is a unit and everything is connected. Yes there might be arthritis in the knee joint, but why? To answer that question, the rest of the body must be looked at. Specialists forget to do that.
- Third, most specialists dealing with musculoskeletal pain, are trained in, focus on, and practice pain relief. Treating the symptom can offer short term symptomatic relief, but since it does not look for or treat the underlying cause of the pain, it cannot offer a long term solution to pain.
- Fourth, even when not treating the symptom, these experts often get caught up on treating the effects not the affects.
In a series of blog posts to follow this, I am going to talk about how the body is a unit and how common imbalances in one area of the body affect the alignment and function of other parts of the body and how these misalignments can cause pain throughout the body.
How foot and leg posture influence each other and cause pain.
How hip and spine posture influence each other and cause pain.
How upper back and shoulder posture influence each other and cause pain.
How hip and spine posture influence each other and cause pain.
How upper back and shoulder posture influence each other and cause pain.
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