Is the site of the pain the site of the problem?
Contributed by Trisha Magee
Your elbow starts hurting. A little at first. Now it’s more frequent. It’s gotten to the point where you can’t lift the milk jug out of the fridge with that arm. So, you stretch the elbow. Ice it. Rub it a little. Heat it. But that only provides momentary relief. After a few weeks, you decide to get it checked out. Maybe you go to a massage therapist, physical therapist, chiropractor, or acupuncturist and they treat your elbow. And it helps for several weeks. But then the pain creeps back a few months later and now you struggle to pour your morning coffee.
Sometimes elbow pain isn’t caused by an issue with the elbow. Oftentimes there’s a shoulder instability that causes increased forces to be transmitted to your elbow, which isn’t equipped to deal with on an ongoing basis. So, it gets “overused.” And the elbow pain likely won’t go away permanently until the shoulder problem is addressed, even if the shoulder has never appeared to be a problem.
What about the person who is performing a back squat, but experiences hip pain or pinching with these? Every lifting session involves hip stretching, joint mobilization, and more stretching. The pinching seems to lessen a bit, but it must be addressed at every lifting session, over and over again. So many times, there is a lack of ankle mobility that the person is unaware of, thus resulting in a change in forces transferred up to the hip with each squat. Stretching, mobilizing, heating, and massaging the hip will never truly address the problem because the REAL problem isn’t at the hip; it’s at the ankle. Fix the ankle and the hip issues resolve largely on their own.
These are just two common examples I’ve seen in the many years I’ve been practicing. There are many more. An experienced clinician, whether it be a physical therapist, chiropractor, or orthopedic surgeon, will look at the entire picture to truly assess and treat the dysfunctional area, even if the problematic area isn’t at the site of pain.
Our body is a beautifully designed system of levers and pulleys, created for movement. Sometimes even a “small” injury can set off a cascade of abnormal movement patterns that go unnoticed for years. Like putting a fitted bed sheet on a mattress, if one corner is removed, the tension changes elsewhere within the sheet. The same thing happens within the human body; a change in tension of one area of the body (due to swelling, scar tissue, tight muscle) can affect an area of the body other than the injured area. And oftentimes, it’s in this secondary area where we feel pain. But just as repeatedly tugging at the fitted corner opposite the one that was removed won’t make the sheet fit correctly, treating the painful site only won’t truly treat the problem.
Pain is like the “check engine” light in your car. The light itself isn’t a problem; it only indicates there’s a problem that needs to be investigated. Replacing the lightbulb or the wiring to the lightbulb won’t resolve the engine problem. Pain is your body’s warning system that something’s not right and ought to be investigated. It has nothing to do with how tough somebody is or whether they have a high or low tolerance for pain. Pain merely indicates something isn’t operating correctly. It would be prudent to not ignore the warning before more damage is done.
I would encourage you to get that nagging pain checked out, by someone who looks at you as an entire human being, not with tunnel vision only to the area that hurts. Get to the root of the problem for a real solution. I would love the opportunity to help you.