Chronic pain has been a hot topic of discussion for about as long as there have been people. Everyone, at one time or another, has had pain that persists for weeks or even months. The question is why is it that the pain continues for so long? It's helpful to start with the answers to several other questions first:
- What (if any) was the injury that started the pain?
- What activities are exacerbating the pain?
- Are there nutritional deficiencies that underlie the inability to heal?
- Are there hormonal imbalances or in-born errors of metabolism?
- Are there emotional stressors that manifest as pain?
Some people do not rest their injuries sufficiently to allow full healing. I often have patients who feel that they cannot take time off the job to recover. If their job involves activities that overly stress the healing tissues then the result will be prolonged inflammation and scar tissue development.
Many people in the U.S. are under-nourished. By this I mean that there are not enough of the critical nutrients for healing in an optimum way. Even for those who take supplements; it is very difficult for them to know whether the supplement they are on is being absorbed by their bodies, or even that the supplement has the nutrients that are listed on the label! This, of course, means that their healing response will be slow and perhaps remain incomplete.
Fibromyalgia is an example of a condition that is thought to be (at least in part) due to metabolic imbalances. Some of the most promising research points to an overwork syndrome, wherein certain cells of the body are pushed into continuing activity to the point of exhaustion. The chemistry involved is more complex than is suitable for this discussion, but it is worth noting that much can be done with the proper stimulation of these overworked cells by the application of frequency specific microcurrent and supplementation with a couple of specific compounds.
Perhaps the most perplexing case is the one listed last. In this last case, the person suffering pain has no "injury" to the body. One can see that the pain sufferer is suffering, but beyond that nothing else seems to be out of place, inflamed, cut, bruised, etc. Most of us are aware that emotions can cause pain, but when the pain persists for years, it becomes quite a different matter. What can be done for this? As with all the other types of chronic pain listed above, this kind of pain can also be extinguished.
In my practice I use a variety of techniques to rid my patients of chronic pain, including: microcurrent stimulation (to balance the bioelectric flow - similar to acupuncture, but without the needles), massage, chiropractic adjustments, and nutritional and lifestyle counseling.