Pain
Recently my book on “FREEDOM from PAIN” was revised and it gives a comprehensive list of Pain, its causes and the treatments recommended. Forty years in practise has given me a great deal of experience in the practical aspects of pain relief.
Physical pain requires correct diagnosis and then treatment to be given for that condition. Modern medicine is about surgical skills and pharmaceutical knowledge for numbing pain with drugs. After the crisis is over however, we may be left with a drug dependence for pain. Rehabilitation often requires the kind of work that I do in complementary therapies.
Symptoms are not causes. Pain varies in each individual, even though the symptoms may be the same. The differences are many and varied and can be influenced by age, temperament, constitution, sex and heredity, as well as immune response, toxic levels and mental attitudes.
So a symptom can be a red herring; it can be aching and paining at one end of the body, while the cause is at the other end. You can rub someone's back if that's where it’s aching, but this referred symptom may only be relieved once the cause of the pain is located and corrected.
Consider the common cold. It may be a viral phenomenon, but the cure will ultimately depend on the patient’s ability to heal: no problem at all if they are young and healthy, has a good nutritious diet, feels loved and secure and importantly, the spine is in good shape. But the situation changes if the patient is in an environment perhaps where smoking is permitted, is allergic to nicotine, has little access to clean air, is overworked, eats junk food, suffers insomnia and is suffering unbeknowns from an old spinal sprain. Add to this a poor constitution, an unhappy work place, a negative attitude to life, and a deficiency in essential vitamins...well you wouldn't expect the person to feel very well, would you?
So symptoms, shared by many, can have as many different resolutions as there are people to suffer. What cures one may not help another; one person's potion can be another person's poison.
What can I do for you?
As a physical therapist, I give professional advice and treatment for every sprain in the body from head to foot and all the soft tissue in between. The modalities I use are osteopathy, acupuncture and moxibustion, naturopathy, and homoeopathy, Bach Flower remedies for emotional pain along with hypnotherapy and counselling, EFT and Tapping.
Naturally if medical care is necessary, I refer the patient to the appropriate authority.
No one has a monopoly on healing. We must work together for the patient’s well being.
Osteopathy will straighten every joint that is inhibiting your return to normal life.
Massage techniques that coax the muscle into cooperating with the joint movement is given along with friction techniques to break up adhesions. Drainage is necessary to move lymphatic congestion along and reduce swelling in joints.
Exercise is advised when ready but not before the joint is capable of independent activity.
That’s where we often differ with physiotherapy. Hydrotherapy is an excellent aid to recovery as movement without the weight of gravity is a quick route to healing.
Acupuncture has been around a long time and has proven its excellence in reducing pain so that the joints can move without the restriction of muscle cramp and shortening. Acupuncture works in mysterious ways but most now believe that it interfers with the brain receptors for blocking pain. There is also the ‘gate’ theory which believes that you can reduce the excess energy flooding the meridians and withdraw the excess energy causing blockage. Whatever the theory, acupuncture works as you can testify to by the look on a patient’s face when the pain reduces or leaves altogether.
Hypnotherapy supports the subconscious mind in its ability to attain relaxation and the rest required for healing. It can remove negative blocks if the patient is willing and improve sleep by gentle supportive suggestion.
Pain is a message from your brain to you that you are hurting and you must do something about it. Pain stops you in your tracks and you are required to ask for assistance. This can run counter to your ideas about accepting help from anyone, so it’s an important learning lesson.
Pain often lies you on your back for months or even years while you contemplate your life and review the choices you have made that brought you to where you are today. It is an opportunity for you to see things in a different light. Many people later on bless their illness as a necessary turning point in their busy lives. Books have been written about it and how their pain created a new appreciation of what they had and not what they wanted.
There is always some stress around the person who has a crises of health. Be it an accident, a trauma, nothing happens in a vacuum. That is why Dr Patch Adams who wrote “Gesunteit” always insists on counselling all the family when one member is in trouble. He gives free treatment in America in his hospital but insists in this rule of family involvement.
Ask yourself, what do you gain by being sick? If it’s not extra care and attention from your family, then it’s professional care from experts. Either way you are requiring unconditional love in its various forms. That’s OK, we just need to see deeper into our lives and appreciate our emotional needs. Pain is a cry for help and our body will demand its needs are met.
Pain isn’t felt for two days after the injury occurs. People will say “I woke up with it!” This is the time that it takes for muscles to shorten to protect the injured area. So think back two days and remember what you were lifting, what sport you were playing and enjoying before you ‘overdid’ it.
Remember the rule: for an acute injury, RICE (REST, or take the weight off it; ICE it to reduce inflammation; COMPRESS it with a bandage to restrict movement and reduce aggravation of the injury site and ELEVATE it to reduce the oedema or swelling.)
Chronic sprains are the opposite. You may need to heat the stiff joint and move it around to regain flexibility.
Refer to my book and seek therapy in good time.
