Chronic Pain

By Bill Reddy, LAc, Dipl. Ac

Pinecrest Wellness Center

More Complementary & Integrative Healthcare Articles

Chronic Pain

According to the American Pain Foundation, 50 million Americans suffer from persistent pain. It comes from a number of sources, the most common of which are headaches, arthritis and back pain. Discomfort not only keeps you from work (pain is the second leading cause of medically related work absenteeism), but also negatively affects your relationships, social life, and ability to get a good nights rest.

These top three types of chronic pain are “invisible” in that your friends, colleagues and family don’t see a spurting artery or your skin turning green, just a limp or a cringe when you move a certain way. Traditional approaches to pain “management” rely on trying to locate the root cause of the problem and provide some relief with rest, exercise, therapy and pain medications. In some cases surgery is recommended as a last resort.

Physical therapy, kinesiology, massage therapy, chiropractic and acupuncture are all available as treatment modalities for chronic pain, and in some cases may be a solution for you, depending on the actual diagnosis. Plus, there are very few side effects.

Physical therapists and kinesiologists look at body movements and can identify which muscles are weak or tight and develop a plan to help you lengthen the tight muscles and strengthen the weak muscles to guide your body back to being pain-free and increase range of motion.

Massage therapists use a number of techniques to re-establish blood flow to tight/dysfunctional muscles, tendons and ligaments so that you feel looser and more relaxed. Chiropractors are trained to look for “subluxations” or structural displacements that, when properly aligned, lead to pain relief.

Acupuncturists are skilled at looking at the patient energetically and identifying specific pathways of energy (meridians) that are blocked and using fine, sterile, hair-like stainless steel needles to correct the condition, whether it be back pain, migraines or infertility.

Until the 1960s there was no scientific proof of the existence of meridian pathways in the human body until a North Korean researcher, Kim Bonghan found tubular structures that follow the pathways of energy and can be stimulated with acupuncture needles, finger pressure, lasers, etc.

It’s quite intriguing as a westerner how a few well-placed needles can have such a positive effect on knee osteoarthritis, migraines and back pain, but NIH studies prove it works consistently under double-blind conditions. And, rather than having side effects, acupuncture has been scientifically proven to have a number of side benefits, including improved sleep quality, optimized digestion, and lower levels of cortisol, the stress hormone produced by your adrenal glands.