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 A PRESCRIPTION FOR PAINFREE LIVING by Thomas F.
Roinestad, P.T., Eighty percent of the American public suffers from chronic back pain after the age of fifty. What is this pain attempting to tell us? Should we ignore it or should we be paying attention to the pain's message? Do people perceive pain as friend or foe? Must we all suffer the fate of unresolved continual or intermittent pain, physical deterioration and eventual surgery? Is there some way to correct or prevent these problems? The purpose of this article is to provide insight into the causes of chronic pain and physical deterioration and to provide knowledge which allows you to take control of your physical destiny. The human body is a marvelous machine which, when operating optimally, provides the most efficient means of locomotion on land. The body also possesses a limited ability to repair itself when damaged. One would expect the body to function much longer and better than it actually does for most individuals. The reason it does not involves consideration of the phrases "when operating optimally", and "possesses a limited ability to repair itself." What does 'operating optimally" imply from a functional perspective? It means the body is structurally in balance with all joints, muscles, and other tissues in their proper position. Everything moves in a smooth, graceful, and coordinated manner. The person's body is able to perform all the necessary tasks of daily living, whether at work or at play, whether easy or strenuous. When the body is operating optimally, the resultant stresses are mild and allow the body"s "limited repair abilities" to keep pace with day to day demands without breaking down. To illustrate what can go wrong, imagine yourself purchasing a car with a bent frame. You take the car home and a few weeks later, after the initial thrill of owning a new car subsides, you notice a mild tremble in your seat and in the steering wheel. Between 60 and 65 miles per hour, the mild tremble becomes a bone jarring, tooth chattering misery. You dare not take your eyes off the road since your car seems to have developed a deep, abiding affection for ditches. You grow accustomed to the car's idiosyncrasies because that is just the way the car is. You get used to the pull of the steering wheel and avoid driving between 60 and 65 . Unfortunately, you find yourself in the repair shop more and more often. The car is falling apart and at a faster rate than it is supposed to. You are disgruntled and would like to call Consumer Report, which ranked your model with the best service rating in it's class. You are sure you were sold a lemon and you wonder if you will have to take out a second mortgage to get it in good enough shape to sell. An otherwise great, dependable car which has suffered a bent frame either in manufacture or transport is not functioning optimally. The stresses and vibrations are tearing it apart. You grew accustomed to it's handling quirks. Now it was costing you a small fortune to keep it running. Why? Simply put, a bent frame, a lack of knowledge about the root cause, and complacency on your part were the key problems. The human body, like a car with a bent frame, develops pains and gradually falls into disrepair. Back pain is one way of serving us notice that something is wrong. Probably 80% of us are functioning less than optimally. We feel the occasional or continuous pain and fatigue which we take for granted as a natural consequence of living. We grow accustomed to the pain and fatigue ("that is just the way it is"), we unconsciously compensate to lessen our discomfort by altering the way we move so that stress is taken off the painful areas, but only succeed in creating stress and discomfort elsewhere in our body. Pain should be considered our ally, telling us that we are not in balance, the forces within our bodies excessive, exceeding our natural abilities to self-heal. Pain attempts to make us aware of the need to find and correct the underlying causes of our problems. We may compensate sufficiently to temporarily relieve the pain, but the cost is great, for the underlying destructive forces remain. What is a bent frame in human terms? It means we are lacking symmetry and balance in our bodies. We can see this lack in the mild scoliosis of the spine, in the unevenness of the pelvis, and in the way the head sits slightly askew upon the neck. To the trained eye, lack of symmetry and balance is also revealed in the way a person walks and moves. The body is forced to make minor or even major adjustments in order to function, but at a price. |
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Underlying Causes of Pain There are several underlying causes that result in asymmetry and imbalance: 1. Significant leg length differences. Research has revealed that when one leg is 1/8 to 3/16 inch longer than the other, there is a greater incidence of chronic back Pain. Approximately 40% of the population has a significant leg length difference. The most reliable measure of leg length difference is derived from an X-ray of the legs from floor to hips. The most effective method of treatment is a lift placed under the foot, thus providing balanced support. To experience the importance of leg length, stand on the floor with a book or magazine under one foot and note how the curvature of the spine, the position of the head on the neck, and other areas of the body are affected. Flat feet do not retain a healthy arched character when walking and a great deal of stress is therefore transmitted through the body. The knees tend to turn in excessively due to the lack of support, disallowing the normal, injury free movement of joints, muscles, and ligaments throughout the body. To experience the effects of flat feet, stand with the feet firmly planted on the floor and turn the knees inward, paying close attention to the look and feel of the curves of the spine. Collapse of the arches in one foot also shortens that leg. Turn one knee inward and outward which gives the effect of collapsing or raising the arches and notice the results. A normal, controlled unwinding of the foot as it lands on the ground distributes the load of this landing over a longer span of time. A highly arched foot does not unwind sufficiently to reduce the shock of walking or running. Imagine walking on jack hammers. The shock waves created exceed the body's innate tolerance levels for stress, destroying cartilage, bone, and normal symmetry and balance throughout. Take an ordinary pencil and tap one end on a finger. How long would it take to evoke pain; how long to turn your finger into hamburger? Think of the number of steps you take per day, per year, per lifetime! Another thing highly arched feet do is lengthen the leg on that side. Did you notice this effect in the above knee exercise? 4. Torsions or twists of the legs. Torsions or twists of the legs alter the position and function of the feet, making them behave as if either flat or highly arched. Torsions may be asymmetrical, influencing one leg differently from the other. This wreaks havoc with the body. Balance and symmetry are almost impossible to maintain in this situation. Walk with one foot slightly turned out and the other foot slightly turned in, which mimics an asymmetrical situation. Now walk with both feet turned either inward or outward to get a sense of symmetrical torsion and notice the difference between the two ways of walking. Flat feet, highly arched feet, and altered foot function caused by torsions of the legs are in most cases treated successfully with dynamically appropriate custom-made orthotics (orthoses). orthotics are inserts which are placed in the shoes, supporting and correcting foot function. They assist and guide the feet in a way that promotes health, symmetry, and balance in the entire body by alleviating the stresses caused by the feet. All of the above problems create an unstable base of support for the body. Consider the Leaning Tower of Pisa. How much longer would it last and how much cheaper to maintain if it had a stable base of support? If it could sense pain and were pliable enough to compensate, as we do, how much pain would the Tower be in? Would it's back be straight, it's pelvis level, or it's head positioned properly on top? If it could walk, would it be efficient or would it tear itself apart under the load of instability and compensation? Gross trauma occurs when a large, significant force is brought to bear on our bodies, causing damage; such as slipping on ice, automobile accidents, football injuries, etc. Gross trauma may seem a little different from what has been discussed above, but is it? Imagine you are driving your bent-frame car along a scenic dirt road at 40 miles per hour? All of a sudden you hit a pothole only a small one-but big enough to dislodge a front tire which takes off for the ditch and pasture beyond with your car in hot pursuit. The car has finally met the ditch of it's dreams! As the right front fender is being crushed from the impact, you perceive pain in your left chest as the slack is taken up in the seat belt. If you are one of the lucky few whose body lacked a "bent frame" before this accident, you probably will have one now. The ribs on the left side were pushed backward, twisting the spine with it. Instantaneously, muscles went into spasm, holding everything in this new, distorted configuration. You heal sufficiently to get rid of most or all of the pain in a few weeks. With time, you start feeling, annoying aches and pains you had not experienced before. Do not be surprised when you wind up with more frequent headaches, neck pain, or perhaps leg or foot pain, even months or years latter, all caused by the bending of your frame. Hopefully, you will find the right practitioner who can help you successfully deal with the cause of your problems and not just treat the obvious symptoms. |
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How could one innocuous little pothole rip the tire off your car? It could do so because of the more insidious, cumulative trauma caused by reaction to the root cause and existence of a bent frame. The wheel was ready to fall off for some time, needing only a minor trauma to dislodge it. It is surprising how often little potholes in life get all the credit for our pain, blown discs, blown knees, or other seemingly sudden problems when, in reality, they are nothing more than the result of the final "straw that broke the camel's back". Please listen to your body. Pay attention to what it is telling you and take appropriate action to correct the underlying problem. Realize that pain exists for a reason. Hopefully, this material benefits you in your quest for a more balanced, higher quality and pain-free future. If used wisely, it will empower you in your personal search for the right practitioner who can help you and your loved ones. Then you need not worry about life's little potholes nearly as much. |
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