It never made sense to me as to why a person could simply cough, bend over to tie their shoe, sleep wrong, move weird etc., and then all of a sudden suffer a severe pain episode.
I asked other practitioners as to what they thought. Some said it is what it is, others said it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Old age/out of shape was another rationale and several other suggestions were given.
Examinations and radiographs over the years have shed some light on the reasoning for these pain episodes. X-rays have disclosed degenerative conditions in teenagers, adults and seniors. Orthopedic, muscular, neurological, range of motion studies etc… have disclosed progressive weakness and functional losses not otherwise measured by other means.
Now, the research is saying that most have had thousands of falls, slips, trips, accidents over our lifetime. We just forgot about them or thought they were unremarkable.
You see, every time you fell off your bike, slipped out of the tree, bumped your head, rear ended something, was rear-ended, hit with a ball, pillow fought, jumped off a roof, wrestled, punched/hit in the face, dropped, belly flopped, slipped on ice, tripped over the curb, worked out wrong, fell at the skating rink/ice rink, did repetitive work, suffered tough pregnancies, sports mishaps and the list goes on…..the body most likely received trauma whether it be big or small.
The obvious big traumas may be easier to remember like falling out of a helicopter, rolling a vehicle and maybe thrown from it, shark attack, broken bones etc….but the combination of all the large and small mishaps can add up and create an unforeseen problem over time.
I have read that it takes 60% loss in function in a nerve before symptoms appear. That means that you could lose 59% function of a nerve and not know that there is anything wrong because a symptom has not shown up yet. Wow! This may be why most people can go from fine today and hurting severely tomorrow. It may also explain why heart attacks happen so suddenly. The patient was not fine the day before the heart attack. They just did not have symptoms yet. Sometimes the first symptom is the last. The heart attack did not just instantly happen out of the blue. The condition was building and building until the body reached a max load and failed.
Part of uncovering past injury history is through the taking of X-rays. X-rays are very important to our office because they offer us a visual not otherwise seen. Underlying complications are observed in the form of degenerative conditions, reduced disc spacing, birth defects, anomalies, fractures both new and old, abnormal curvatures, mal-positioned vertebrae etc…Of great revelation, the x-rays give a timeline of approximately when the body was injured and how bad the injury was to the body. I feel it is very important to look at all the angles when and before working with a patient.
When we use the word trauma, be aware that most of us think shark attack, roll over, helicopter crash etc… So…when we say or think trauma please remember it as being not only major but also minor things like the above referenced slips, falls, trips etc…
Once you realize that your body has been traumatized in many ways, it is not hard to consider that all of those episodes must have damaged the body. The accumulation of all the stress in life and all of these injuries could feasibly have an impact on the current body situation. There ia a high probability that the body could reach its threshold and endure enough stress that it becomes tired of the abuse and finally says…STOP!
Another goal of getting a detailed past injury history is to help one realize the hidden iceberg underneath the surface. Without a good understanding of this concept, it is likely that one would not fix the cause of the problem or change their lifestyle to prevent further destruction from occurring.
We aim to find the cause of the problem, remedy that and restore function back to the body as close to 100% as possible. Simply, the physical stresses of a body over time accumulate and manifest later in life. It is important to be aware that the effect of those stresses may be responsible for many of your complaints.