Broken: No You’re Not

"He said it would never relax, that it would always be in pain and I can expect to never be able to turn my head completely or without pain.”

It wasn’t the first time I’ve had a patient tell me their last doctor told them they were “broken”, “unfixable”, that when they left the office they felt like damaged goods.

They were just going to have to get used to the pain, get regular cortisone shots, maybe try some rehab, but as their former doctor said, “It's not going to get better, this pain is just something that you’re going to have to get used to.”

This is my biggest pet peeve.

Often times as health professionals we miss the forest for the trees or rather we get so focused in on one thing that we forget how resilient, dynamic, and strong the human body is and that it’s really good at healing itself.

This patient’s former doctor could have been right. Maybe there was some underlying issue that would never allow this patient to turn their head without pain again.

Or maybe they missed the forest for the trees. Maybe they hadn’t gotten the complete picture.

Maybe this patient had fallen into the trap so many others have.

That trap is that the care you receive is often times more dependent on who you are going to see than what is actually going on with you.

For example when you go to a physical therapist, you usually get therapy. When you go to a primary care physician you usually get a pill, when you go to a massage therapist you usually get a massage and when you go to a Chiropractor you usually get “cracked”. You get the point.

For the majority of people, because our body is really good at healing and taking input (massage, therapy, pill) and turning it into a positive, this works.

However, it doesn’t work for everyone and when it doesn’t work it often ends with an idea from the treating doctor that is, if I can’t “fix you” it’s just the way it is or rather, “this is just the way it is, now it’s time for you to get used to it.”

The majority, keyword being majority, of the time this is unequivocally false. Pain is rarely something that you should have to get used to, but because of our often close minded view of health and the human body, “a machine to be fixed” when something doesn’t look “normal” or “typical” we resort to a mindset of this is “broken” or “unfixable”.

Luckily, there is another way.

Instead of looking at what isn’t working, what if we compared what is working to what isn’t working?

What if we utilized what is working to help the areas that aren’t working optimally and that are causing pain?

Well we’d first have to measure all the systems involved and how they’re functioning, then we’d have to use that information to make a very unique plan of action based off of that individual.

That’s what we do at Optimize Chiropractic with our Data-Driven approach.

You aren’t broken. You aren’t meant to be in pain. Things can get better.

If you’re looking for a different approach that utilizes the latest technology and sees you as an individual not as a symptom or a machine to be fixed click the button on the right to schedule your complimentary consultation.

By the way, that patient above can now fully turn her head without pain.

No more changing positions 20 times throughout the night to try and find the “perfect spot” that doesn’t hurt, no more having to rotate her entire body to back the car out of the driveway, no more feeling like they’re broken.