Your pain’s impact on your life will tell you the solution.
Why this matters:
If you’re reading this, then pain is affecting your daily life. The good news is that how it affects your life, actually leaves clues for us to identify what can be helpful for recovery. It’s as simple as answering a few questions:
How does this affect you day to day? Break down a 24 hour period. From the moment you open your eyes awake to the moment you lay your head down to sleep. This helps us identify the general structure that is irritated. Do you feel worse in the morning but better in the afternoon/evening? It’s most likely due to some arthritis. If the opposite is true, we may be dealing with some issues with a herniated disc.
Are you able to stand for long periods of time? How long can you tolerate? This identifies our standing capacity. Also, if standing feels better, then we’re looking at disc irritation; and we can move along our disc treatment progression.
Are you able to sit for long periods of time? How long can you tolerate that position? If you can sit and it brings you relief, we’re probably dealing with arthritis or spinal stenosis. This would indicate that we would follow the spinal stenosis treatment progression.
What other activities are you doing that’s impacted by the pain? This gives us a general idea of the shapes and movements that either make your pain worse or better.
Are you able to exercise? What exercises do you do? How do you feel as a result?
Exercise itself is an activity with an endless array of movement. This provides us clues with what you can tolerate, and what makes you feel better/worse.
Action steps:
The questions above also establish a baseline for your recovery. If you can tolerate more time in standing, walking, sitting, or even exercise, that means you’re making progress. It is more than just pain relief. If you can walk more with less pain, we’re heading in the right direction. No detail is too minute.
So answer those questions above and see what clues you’ve found to help you recover.
If you need help, reply to this email. We’d be happy to help.
