Here it comes again. Maybe you are sitting at your desk at work, at home using the computer, driving in your car or, as I used to do in school, sitting on the floor hunched over to study, books in my lap, feeling the burning, aching, nagging pain that seems to grab at your neck, upper back and shoulder regions. You try stretching it and rubbing it or ask your spouse or friend to just “get in there and loosen things up”.Pain relievers will help for a little bit, but if the pain and the discomfort just keep returning, there is no real end in sight. Sometimes, there can be pain and/or weakness filtered down to the arm, hand, and fingers. Sometimes your fingers feel numb.Symptoms just like these are related to us in our office week after week, year after year. The progression of symptoms just continues to worsen until the individual breaks down because he or she has to do something. Most people decide to wait out the pain because “it usually goes away on its own”, or the “Tylenol seems to help, but now I’m taking eight of them a day, every day”.I am here to tell you that most of the time, the pain will go away on its own, because your body is smart and will learn to adapt to the situation as best as it can so you can continue to function throughout the day. BUT, one day, the body will go no further. It has had all that it can take. Many people will live day-to-day trying to mask the pain and symptoms that are bombarding their lives and reducing their quality of life.I am here to tell you that those symptoms, that nagging, aching, radiating pain is your body’s way of shouting STOP! I NEED HELP! That numbness and pain, or persistent muscle ache is your nervous system’s distress signal to you. The primary means of communication that your body uses day to day is your nervous system. Your brain communicates thousands of bits of information to the rest of your body via your spinal cord and the nerves that run to every cell, tissue, muscle and organ – a network of nerves that make our bodies function.Through this amazing piece of equipment, our bodies communicate back to the brain – they work together to communicate intention and response to situations. An interruption to this system is conveyed through symptoms like the ones mentioned above. What many people do not know is that the process that is causing those symptoms has been at work for quite some time – before the pain began.Chiropractic can help to eliminate this miscommunication of your nervous system, invoking its natural responses and intention to heal. By locating the source of stress and irritation to your nervous system, we remove what is interfering with your body’s ability to heal. As chiropractors, we analyze your spine in order to influence your nervous system. When vertebrae in your spine become misaligned (or subluxated), it can put excessive stress on the body. Chiropractors remove these subluxations (utilizing a variety of techniques all geared toward each individual patient), which then allow the nervous system to work as it was intended to.Neck pain is a common occurrence. Approximately 70 percent of people experience some form of it at some time in their lives. This does not mean, however, that neck pain is normal. Frequent neck pain can result in a decreased range of motion in the spine and muscle that may be weaker in the future. This means an increased possibility of wear and tear of spinal segments, aggravated and accelerated disc degeneration and long-term effects that include osteoarthritis of the spine.In today’s society, if a knee or hip wears out, you can always replace it. What will you do if your spine wears out? Chiropractic can help you keep your spine healthy which in turn leads to a happier, healthier you.
