When we're talking about musculoskeletal conditions, it's true almost 100 percent of the time. For those of you who are my patients at my North Scottsdale AZ chiropractic clinic, you know this is the message in multicolored bold letters on my office consultation room wall. Most people are conditioned to think that if they don't have pain in North Scottsdale AZ there is nothing wrong.

Just watching TV commercials reinforces that. If you have pain, take this pill and it will go away. This leads you to believe that your condition will go away also.

Every day, I talk to patients who have had conditions that have been going on for many years. In most cases, the pain they felt most recently that brought them to my office, is just a flareup of a chronic situation. Some people will allow things to go on for years and claim that they have a high tolerance for pain.

In some cases, yes, this may be true. However what I see in the majority of my patients, is that they, for some reason, had allowed the pain to continue but chose to take something to relieve it. In their minds, they felt they were doing the best thing, to get through the day without pain, whatever that takes. It sounds like it's much easier to take a pill or go for an injection, but that is not correcting the problem. Many are afraid they won't be able to do the things they love if they don't stop the pain.

The truth is, they may never be able to do those things eventually if the degenerative condition worsens even more. I tell every new patient that taking something for pain or having an injection, is like having your mechanic turn off the engine light in your car and not correcting the cause. No one would ever allow that to happen with their vehicle, but they do all the time with their own body.

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But the Pain went Away - it Must be Getting Better in North Scottsdale AZ

Not in the case of spinal issues like degenerative disc disease and stenosis. These are degenerative conditions that worsen over time. They do not just go away. By taking something for a degenerated, compressed disc, you're causing more harm than good.

Over time, as the disc compresses, the vertebrae above and below develop spurs and can even fuse those two segments together. Now that the condition has worsened, for many, surgery is recommended.

In cases of spinal stenosis, another degenerative condition, pain relievers and injections work for only so long. Then the pain can become relentless and once again, surgery is usually recommended.

By the time these patients come to my office, it is much more work to manage these cases. The treatment program is more intense and takes much longer than it would have been earlier on.

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Pain is the Last Thing to Appear, and the First Thing to go Away…

Back to the title of this article, just because you don't have pain doesn't mean you don't have something going on that isn't normal. Similar to having bloodwork or other diagnostic tests done on the body, it's very important to be screened for conditions like this. If it's been many years since your last spinal X-ray, I strongly recommend having baseline films taken.

One example of how I find serious chronic conditions in patients is that they show up on X-rays I order when they've been in a motor vehicle injury. Many times, I find these chronic conditions that have been present for years, and the patient never knew about it. Either they never felt pain, or if they did, they took something to relieve it right away. This just made the condition worse as I explained earlier.

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So if I don't need surgery, what else can I do other than pain relievers or injections?

Physical therapy can help these conditions by strengthening the surrounding spinal muscles. This also helps to take some of the pain away. Research shows that to truly slow the degenerative process down, and decompress an otherwise compressed disc, a specific chiropractic decompression technique can be done.

I've personally helped thousands of patients over the last 25 years, to get their lives back with this technique. Surgery was recommended for most, and once treated, they never required the surgery, nor did they need pain medication or injections.  Acupuncture also assists in changing the body's message to send inflammatory chemicals and calcium to those levels, therefore slowing and sometimes stopping the spinal stenosis from becoming worse.

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If you're interested in having a baseline X-ray ordered, I can help. If you already have been diagnosed with a degenerative condition, please contact my office for a complimentary consultation.