For many, seeing and hearing ocean waves is calming. For Fort Wayne back pain and neck pain patients, feeling the wave of relief from pain can be the same if they are aware of it. For those who don’t realize that pain ebbs and flows while healing, the wave of healing can be frustrating. Aaron Chiropractic Clinic helps our patients understand the wave of healing, recognize the research behind our relieving treatment plan, and celebrate the pain relief they get.
DESCRIBING AND RATING PAIN
Since back and neck pain experiences are complete with fluctuations of symptoms as they get better, researchers tried to come up with a way to classify neck pain patients and their pain patterns by studying 1208 neck pain patients. They came up with 16 subgroups! Wow. The biggest subgroup was “mild persistent fluctuating” with 25% of the patients in it reporting pain as a 3.4 out of 10 (10 worst pain). The “moderate episodic” group had 24% with a pain rating of 2.7. “Persistent fluctuating” pain patients were those disturbed more by pain than the others. (1) Instead of just labeling and rating pain, researchers had patients portray their pain using a visual picture scale about their pain intensity and symptomatology over 12 months. The patient responses were quite similar in defining the pain intensity but not as much for the symptoms and their characteristics. (2) Aaron Chiropractic Clinic finds that everybody feels pain in slightly different ways and that they find certain types of pain more annoying than others do. All of our Fort Wayne chiropractic patients are distinctive!
THE HEALING “WAVE”
For 12 months, another study followed 1124 neck pain patients who saw a chiropractor. Neck pain patients having “persistent pain” – 75% to 63% over 12 months - and very minor pain stayed relatively stable. Those who had “episodic pain” – 21% to 24% over the year – had greater changes in their pain patterns. (3) This is why we inform our back and neck pain patients that recovery is more wavelike than a straight line. While healing, pain comes and goes. Going away more than it comes is a positive signal of healing and pain relief. Aaron Chiropractic Clinic reminds our Fort Wayne neck pain and back pain patients to not be discouraged along the way. We will get there together!
CHIROPRACTIC IN MANAGING BACK AND NECK PAIN PATTERNS
Research such as described here regarding the patterns of neck pain and back pain sufferers shows the on-going need for them to have team members like their chiropractors as well as general practitioners to handle it, understand it, and care for it. One researcher described how a patient who underwent spinal surgery 30 years ago now experienced neck pain and cervical arm pain due to adjacent segment disease – a condition often seen in spinal discs around the spinal level that underwent back surgery - was treated with cervical manipulation, flexion distraction decompression (Cox®), soft-tissue mobilization, and therapeutic ultrasound for resolution of pain. (4) Again, pain relief is seldom sudden, but rather slow and steady with treatment, coming/going pain intensity, patience, and appreciation for the relief gotten be it 50%, 70% or 90% as supported by the 50% Rule of Cox® Technic.
CONTACT Aaron Chiropractic Clinic
Listen to this PODCAST with Dr. John Murray on The Back Doctors Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson as he shares patient cases that were complicated and yet found relief with The Cox® Technic System of Spinal Pain Management over time.
Schedule your Fort Wayne chiropractic appointment now. Together, we’ll aim for the calming wave of healing and celebrate the pain relief.
