Do Not Suffer, Avoid Chronic Pain

Transcription

Hello everyone, it's Dr. Aaron Seaton with The Chiropractic Place here in Redding, California. Just wanted to go over the top four reasons not to live in chronic pain. In my office, in my over 15 years of experience as a chiropractor, you see a lot of people who suffer needlessly for long periods of time, and so I wanted to create this video and hopefully be able to reach people who are living in chronic pain and give you the four reasons why I suggest not doing that.

So number one, people in chronic pain tend to live on over-the-counter medications, now, this could be things like Tylenol, Advil, ibuprofen, whatever it is, these drugs, they're not harmless, they don't come without some level of risk, you can cause damage to your stomach, to your kidneys, to your liver, just by taking these things over and over again, longer than they're recommended to be taken, so I always talk with my patients who are in chronic pain that our goal, when we're seeing you, we wanna see a massive reduction in the amount of over the counter-medications you're having to take because of these long-term health risks, some of these things can cause gastrointestinal bleeding, which is stomach bleeding, which you may or may not be aware of when you're taking it, long-term kidney and liver issues. So there are dangers associated with taking over-the-counter medications for long periods of time without being monitored properly for that, so that's a one reason not to live in chronic pain.

The second reason not to live in chronic pain is that people who are in chronic pain tend to exist in a fight or flight state, meaning the part of their nervous system called the sympathetic nervous system is the stress response that they have... They get stuck in a fight or flight state, so what happens to your body when you're doing that. Well, when you're stuck in that sympathetic response, that fight or flight state, that can trigger the release of cortisol, which is a stress hormone, our body makes, cortisol is known to raise blood sugar levels, cortisol also suppresses our immune system, so when you're in a chronic state of pain, you can be triggering that part of your nervous system to create cortisol and your body is not gonna be able to function at its very best because of that chronic pain, because your body is constantly dealing with the stress of living in pain. Now, I don't know about you, but I would like my immune system to work properly and I don't want my blood sugar levels at very high levels all of the time, both of those things have long-term consequences to our health if we do that. So that's another reason getting out of chronic pain, a good thing to do.

Number three, the effect of chronic pain on relationships, chronic pain is hard for the person who's dealing with that, but it can also affect their close friends and family, because chronic pain can make us more irritable, it can make us less able to focus. So even performances at work, our work relationships can get affected because when you're dealing with that pain all of the time, it's taking away from that time that you could be enjoying your work, enjoying time with friends and family, because you're getting robbed of those experiences because you're constantly dealing with pain. I've dealt with several of those cases in my office, where patients, when they start to get better, they start to open up a lot of emotion, obviously comes out, and they talk about how this has been impacting their marriage, their relationship with their kids, their performance at work, and they're so grateful when they get that chronic pain under control or they're doing better, that they can start to have those relationships again and feel like they're actually able to contribute more in those relationships. So that's another reason not to live with chronic pain.

The fourth reason that I talk to my patients about is that when we're ignoring that pain, that problem tends to get worse over time. Think about it, if you knew you had a cavity and your dentist said, "Hey, there's a cavity, we gotta deal with it," but we just take medication to kinda cover up the pain, have we fixed the cavity just because we don't feel it? You and I both know the answer that is no, that cavity is still there, and if you don't deal with that cavity, that could lead to you needing a root canal, possibly having a really bad infection, you might even need to have that tooth pulled. Way bigger problems down the road, if you ignore just the simple thing of fixing a cavity. The same thing can be true with chronic pain, especially people with chronic back pain, chronic neck pain, if we're ignoring some underlying cause, that problem could be getting worse over time, and not a week goes by in my office, you guys, not a week that I don't hear somebody say, "Doc, I should have started this 10 years ago, doc, I should have been here 20 years ago." Don't let that be you, don't ignore your chronic pain to the point where you allow your spine to start to wear out because we're not doing something about it, give us a call at our office, our consultation, our exam, and any x-rays, plus your first adjustment is only $75.

Now, I do that because I wanna get a lot of information upfront for my patients, so we can make the right decisions about what they need to do, and if I find something on those x-rays or during my exam that's outside of my scope of practice, know full well, that I will happily refer you to the appropriate provider, I will be nothing but honest and upfront with you when you come in here, 'cause when you come to see me and you're dealing with chronic pain for years, you're coming to me looking for answers, and that's my job is to try to get as many of those questions answered for you when I see you. If you have any questions about this, give me a call at my office, I'm Dr. Aaron Seaton with The Chiropractic Place here in Redding, California.

Call our office today to schedule an appointment to kickstart your healthy life: 530-221-8443