Chronic Pain Patients – Must We Live With It?
In our law practice, we see many people who live with chronic pain – frequently of the back and neck. Often they try numerous therapeutic approaches such as pain medications, physical therapy, chiropractic adjustments, or even back and neck injections. Unfortunately, those treatments do not always result in the complete elimination of pain. Does that mean people who have achy backs and necks, arthritis, sore shoulders, and headaches must just learn to live with the discomfort? Not always. There may be a simple way to approach chronic pain that is of a muscular origin.
Most Chronic Pain Has a Muscular Origin
Chronic pain conditions often involve muscles and their functions. It has been repeatedly said that muscles have memory, and that is true to some extent – how we use muscles forms a pattern that they follow when they repeatedly perform a specific task, such as getting in and out of the seating position, bending over to put on shoes, or swinging a golf club. The repetition of the movement makes the action easier each time it is completed until it becomes a “habitual” movement.
Some habitual muscle actions can cause problems, such as if the muscle does not release after contracting or relax without tightness when the muscle is not being used. If we spend a lot of time bending over, for example, the mid-section muscles may go into a short, contracted position, and develop a habit of staying there. We then learn to stay in that position, which results in us leaning over while working at the computer, while sitting and reading, and generally not practicing good posture. Always hunching over can cause a downward spiral into chronic neck and back pain of muscular origin.
Ways We React to Muscle Pain
If we begin to experience muscle pain, there are a couple of ways in which we tend to react.
- Adaptation – We stop using the body part that causes pain, or we modify how it is used. An example would be not reaching your arm above shoulder height because that movement causes shoulder pain.
- Accommodation – We may use another body part to make accommodations for the pain or weakness in the affected area. This results in a weakening of the muscle in the area being favored. An example of this would be keeping our back stiff and straight rather than turning or twisting it.
- Compromising – This is when we eliminate movements and their associated activities, such as not playing golf or going for a run because those activities cause our backs to hurt.
What Can Help?
Many times people say that lifting weights will help “strengthen” muscles so that they will get stronger, and as a result, there will be less pain. Strength training actually causes more contraction of the muscles, so if you are experiencing tight muscle pain, it may be more advantageous to focus on a gentle stretching routine.
Below is a YouTube video uploaded by the Cleveland Clinic, showcasing a gentle yoga routine for tight neck and shoulders. Before you being any exercise program, talk with your physician.
Roseville Personal Injury Lawyer
Hello, and thank you for reading. I’m Ed Smith, a personal injury lawyer in Roseville, California, Any time you have questions about a personal injury matter, I am available by phone at (916) 921-6400 to provide free and friendly advice. If you will be calling from outside the 916 area code, dial toll-free: (800) 404-5400. Additionally, my website has an online contact option.
For nearly 40 years, I have advocated on behalf of Roseville residents who have suffered injuries due to another person’s negligence.
Reviews from prior clients and some of our successful results can be found at the links below:
Photo Attribution: https://pixabay.com/photos/yoga-calm-release-stretching-2662234/
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