It's Dangerous to Feel Good

Most people are motivated to come to our office because of pain.  They have pain in their head or their neck or their back or their shoulder or their leg or somewhere.  Pain is the driving force at this point in their lives.

If we've determined we can help a person and they start receiving chiropractic adjustments, pain often begins to subside fairly quickly.  The improvement of course is dependent upon the precise nature of their condition, how long it's been there, and their overall ability to heal.  As pain levels become more tolerable for the person, I'm usually compelled to give them "The Lecture".  They've entered the danger period.

"The Lecture" is pretty brief:  When we have problems, pain is usually the last thing to come and it's the first thing to going in rehabilitation.  The pain reduction is a sign that irritation is coming off the nerves.  It does not mean that the other soft tissues, muscles and ligaments are healed.  That takes time and until they are healed the problem and the pain can return very readily.  People have often put off doing any number of activities due to the pain and are anxious to return to them.  They need to keep in mind that doing too much too soon can be dangerous.  When rehabilitating injuries it's important to use the area, but not abuse it.  That's always a fine line.

The goal of chiropractic care is to help people to be healthy.  Health is the ability to do the things in life that we both need and want to do.  The road back to health can be an up and down process.  Try to make it more ups than downs by learning to use but not overuse injured body parts.  When the pain subsides, remember it's dangerous to feel good.