No one...
The best doctor is going to be time.
Time is the key to your back pain getting better.
After an injury, if there is no major structural damage like broken bones, time is your best friend. The injury is going to get better all on its own.
So what is the purpose of a physiotherapist or chiropractor?
One, we are there to make sure you do not need to seek more advanced medical care. Two, We are there to guide you through the journey. We are going to help you avoid your painful trigger while your body heals itself. A painful trigger is something that pokes the bear or makes it mad. Like getting salt in a cut on your hand. It hurts like hell but it is not causing any harm. For most back pain, picking something up off the ground is extremely hard to do without pain. We as musculoskeletal therapists can show you a way to get things off the ground that is not as painful.
I like to imagine my role as a chiropractor when you “throw your back out”, is a lot like how your parents took care of you when you skinned your knee after falling off of your bike as a kid.
When you take your skinned knee to your parents, what is the first thing they do? They examine it first to make sure it is just a skinned knee and not anything that a hospital needs to take care of. Then they clean the wound to make sure you do not get an infection and reassure you that everything is going to be alright. The last thing they will do is give you a bandage to make sure you have a tool to protect it as you go back and ride your bike.
My Exam Equals Your Parent's Exam.
We both take a look at the injury to make sure that it is something that we can take care of and does not go beyond the care we can provide you. We want to make sure that what we are about to do can help. We cannot put a band-aid on a broken bone and expect everything to be okay.
Cleaning The Wound And Reassurance
After the exam, we know what is going on and we know we can help. We are going to “put out the fire”. Give you some things to do that will help alleviate the symptoms. Maybe your parents put some Neosporin to help take the sting off of it. I will give you some movements to help take some of the pain away so you can move around a little better. . We are also going to reassure you that nothing is broken and you are going to be okay. Now, is that to say you are not going to bump your knee on something and make it hurt? No, but we know in the long run you are going to heal. This leads me to my last point.
The Band-Aid
They gave you a band-aid for the knee just in case you accidentally bump your knee, it gives it some protection and will not hurt as bad. The “band-aid” I will give you, is the knowledge of certain exercises to help calm your back pain down. It is important to understand here that pain is like a roller coaster ride. It goes up and down. In the down portions when things are hurting it is important to have some tools to help get you out of the dip. Now, even if you are having intense pain, that does not mean that you are hurting or re-injuring your back. It is a normal healing process. In those low moments, you use the “band-aid” I gave you to help get yourself to a functioning level.
To summarize, we both examine the injury to make sure we can handle it. We then reassure you and take care of some of the temporary symptoms. We then give you a tool to handle the pain on your own. Through this whole process, we are never healing the injury. Your parents did not heal the wound themselves. Just like I cannot heal or fix your back. Your body heals the injuries. Your parents and I can just support you and give you tools on how to avoid picking your scab.
If you are unsure or worried about the pain you are experiencing we would love to chat with you. Click the Link or the Button below to schedule a free Consult with us.
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