Making the Pain Go Away

By Dr. Dave Edenfield

Living with pain is no easy task, especially if it reduces mobility or interferes with one’s livelihood.  Unfortunately for all too many people, chronic pain has become a way of life.  In order to get through the day, many people rely on painkillers to make the pain go away, if only for a few hours.  While a short term fix, these products only mask the problem.  They don’t alleviate the underlying issue.  Plus, the use of prescription pain killers can do more harm than good in the long run, causing the user to exacerbate the injury, become dependent upon painkillers or worse.

English: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters in Druid Hills CDP in unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia as seen from Emory University (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A recent report by the Center for Disease Control stated that, “An unknown number of patients were given potentially contaminated steroid injections, with a rising number of those injected now showing symptoms of fungal meningitis, While no original source of the outbreak has been 

found, the CDC has determined that all infected patients identified thus far have received preservative-free (PF) methylprednisolone acetate (80mg/ml) from among the three lots voluntarily recalled by the New England Compounding Center in Framingham, Massachusetts, on September 26, 2012."

While the threat of tainted medications is bothersome to say the least, there is an even a bigger threat to public health, that is the fact that during the past twenty years the use of prescription painkillers has risen dramatically. 

Increase in U.S. Retail Drug Purchases, 1997-2005 (Amount Sold in Grams)
Drug	1997	1999	2001	2003	2005	Change*
Oxycodone	4,449,559	9,717,597	19,947,287	26,655,149	30,628,971	588%
Methadone	518,736	965,389	1,893,322	3,683,878	5,362,813	934%
Fentanyl base	74,085	107,158	186,082	317,197	387,926	423%
Morphine	5,922,870	6,804,933	8,810,755	12,303,954	15,054,842	154%
Hydrocodone	8,699,309	12,102,623	15,597,209	21,106,646	25,803,541	197%
Hydromorphone	241,806	292,585	400,639	579,370	781,284	224%
Source: Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) Automated Reports and Consolidated Orders System. Revised Aug. 1, 2007.  * Percentage change in amounts sold from 1997 to 2005.

What most people do not realize is that the best route to reducing or eliminating pain in their daily lives is to treat the problem and not the symptoms.  Masking the pain can lead to even greater damage that could ultimately lead to a surgical solution.  However, there are non-surgical chiropractic treatments that can both reduce discomfort while working to reduce or even correct the underlying causes of chronic pain. 

Chiropractic treatments typically focus on, but are not limited to, care of:

·         Mid and lower back pain

·         Neck pain

·         Joint pain in the arms and legs

·         Headaches

@chiropractic I Voted (Photo credit: planetc1)

Chiropractors typically treat conditions involving back pain and/or neck pain through “hands-on” adjustments of the spine and surrounding structures.  They believe that as a result of overuse the spinal column can become stressed.  This results in imbalances that can lead to pain, dysfunction and disease. 

 Employing spinal manipulation along with other proven forms of therapy, chiropractors can also bring other tools to bear to alleviate pain, such as electric muscle stimulation, ultrasound and even laser therapy. 

Laser Therapy uses red and infrared light for the relief of pain, to accelerate healing and decrease inflammation. When the light source is placed against the skin, the photons penetrate several centimeters and get absorbed by the mitochondria, the energy producing part of a cell. This energy fuels many positive physiological responses resulting in the restoration of normal cell morphology and function.  Unlike many physical therapy treatments that mask pain or only address the symptoms of disease, Laser Therapy treats the underlying condition to promote healing. This means that the treatments are effective and the benefits of laser Therapy are long lasting.

If you or someone you know is experiencing chronic pain, feel free to show them this blog and let them know that there are other remedies available that will do more to make the pain go away than simply using medications to mask the symptoms.  Through chiropractic care there is hope for long term pain relief.

Dr. Dave Edenfield is part of the team of doctors and therapists at http://www.lakewoodchiropracticjax.com/who are dedicated to helping the public lead a healthy, pain-free life. 

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• Is Your Back Healing Ok?
• Get Straight: The Benefits of Chiropractic Care
• Headaches: Causes and Treatment
• Preventing Low Back Pain
• Low Back Pain and Subluxation