Chiropractor Ken Frederick Explains Pain Is NOT Normal And Why Immediate Attention Is Required

Ray Hrdlicka – Host – Chiropractors.Media

You just mentioned a scenario where a patient has a condition for many, many, many years. And I assume what you just said, it takes longer to fix that than if it just occurred.

Ken Frederick – Chiropractor – Port Orchard, Washington

That’s true, that’s very true. Well, if that is the case, then the answer should be when somebody starts feeling pain, when somebody starts having an issue, they should address it. Right away. As soon as they can. Pain is not normal. You know, as soon as somebody experiences pain, that’s where their body is telling their brain something is wrong. To ignore it leads you down a dangerous path, and that path usually ends up in what they call chronic pain.

I’ve seen lots of rear-end accident whiplash patients come in and I’d ask them, okay, when did your neck pain start? And he said, oh, three years and six months ago. And I asked him, how do you know that? Oh my gosh. That was when I was rear-ended. And I said, why didn’t you do anything about it? And the answer always was, well, I thought it would get better on its own. And usually, it doesn’t. The body will try. The body always tries to heal itself. But usually, it takes about three to four days, maybe a week, to heal itself. If it takes longer than that, it needs help.

So chronic pain usually involves a lot of degeneration, a lot of arthritis, scar tissue. Scar tissue always is a result of a soft tissue injury. That’s why we want people to come in as soon as we can, as soon as they can get to me. Because treatments done by our chiropractor, among many other practitioners, greatly reduces the amount of scar tissue buildup as much as possible.

The answer to a question that why do patients have chronic pain when it seems that they’re healed? And the answer is because scar tissue, like all tissue, grows nerves. Regular tissue has two kinds of nerves, one for pressure and temperature, one for pain. But scar tissue only grows one of those nerves, and it’s the pain nerve. Really? So all you have to do is just touch an area of the body, and the only signal that’s going to get to the brain will be a pain nerve, will be a pain signal, because that’s the only nerve that is there. And that, by definition, is Melzak and Wahl’s pain gate theory.

That was the big question at the time was how can somebody still have chronic pain when it appears that they’ve healed? And the answer is scar tissue. So, it’s really important to try and address the injury and the scar tissue associated with it as soon as possible to keep the scar tissue to a minimum. Massage therapy is a benefit also. Physical therapy is a huge benefit also. And there could be a great team of practitioners that help people not fall into that path of chronic pain.