This is something that no health care practitioner ever wants to hear from their patient. Actually, no caring person would want to hear that from anyone. But unfortunately, there is no doctor worth their weight in salt that has not had to deal with this question.
The truth of the matter, sometimes it does happen.
There are many reasons for this, but my classic answer comes down to organization. Which probably causes you to scratch your head a bit. Let me explain. Have you ever organized your closet? That was one of my chores this past weekend. The reason why most of us don’t enjoy cleaning our closets is; to clean it out, you must make a huge mess. You have to pull everything out, rearrange it, remove what is old and worn out. You need to sweep and vacuum deep into the corners of the closet and collect the garbage that has accumulated. Not a fun task…especially worse when you have an allergy or sensitivity to dust, or you have a large closet. I know some of you husbands can relate, or wives if your husbands are into crazy sports like I am.
The same is true for your nervous and musculoskeletal system. Your body has been stuck in certain patterns and behaviors for decades. Ligaments, muscles and joints have adapted. They have changed, and not for the better. More importantly, your brain and nervous system have adapted. You now have patterns and reflexes that your body has adapted to that, though they are not normal, they are normal for you. If I put a pebble in your shoe, that pebble would hurt in a very short time. But over time, if it was left, you would start to walk differently, your spine would shift to take the pressure off the foot, and eventually, if we took the pebble out of your shoe, you would still “hold” that posture. Your new posture and adaptation are now your normal. The same thing happens when you have spinal subluxation, on both a microscopic scale and on a bigger scale.
So, to get the changes to bring your body back to neutral, to return it back to where it should be, requires effort, work and unfortunately adaptation. Most can understand that, especially if they have ever gone to the gym for the first time after an extended period would know. You don’t usually “feel great” the next day. I can speak from experience, and as my age continues to climb, it is becoming a more regular occurrence.
The bottom line is, we don’t ever want any of our patients to feel worse. I usually tell patients that I want them to feel better more than they do, but we always have to realize that sometime this is the journey that we have to take, and every one of us is different, and so our healing journey will be different as well.
Stay well,
Dr. Josh Nikkanen
Recent Comments