Here you will find 6 reasons why body work is not giving permanent back pain relief. Chronic pain like persistent back pain is a worldwide problem. In the USA it is estimated that 1 out of 2 adults suffer chronic pain. In Europe it is said to be a bit better; 1 in 4 have continuing pain. For years all kinds of body work techniques have been applied. Did this diminish the amount of people suffering? No, it didn’t. On the contrary, the amount of people suffering is increasing.
Find out with 5 simple reasons why body work will not give permanent relief.
1. Scans often show anomaly but rarely cause of pain
Another indicator that body work is not giving permanent back pain relief is when looking at scans.
There is so much research available indicating that anomalies on the spine are more a sign of aging then showing the cause of back pain. Yet many doctors still use the diagnoses of a bulging disc or herniated disc as being the culprit of pain.
In 2015 a study has been published in the American Journal of Radiology where over 3000 MRIs of asymptomatic people (no pain) have been analysed indicating that abnormalities of the spine are already present for people in their twenties and which increases substantially with age.
There is no 1-to-1 relation with a diagnosis and pain. If the body is not ‘broken’, no need to work on the body, like the spine and discs. Something else must be causing the pain. A new approach is necessary.
2. All other methods on body work is not giving permanent back pain relief
Most methods of body work that people use to get rid of their back pain, has not given them permanent relief. The pain is always coming back!
Ask anybody who has been suffering for years chronic pain, what they’ve already tried to get rid of their pain. Medication, physical therapy, massage, surgery, acupuncture, chiropractic or osteopathic adjustments, hypnosis, different sleeping mattresses and many other therapies. What is typical for all these modalities is that it only provides temporary relief. Which basically means that you’ve only been working on the symptom and not on the cause.
So, continuing to working on the body will not give different results after all these years. Nothing is ‘broken’ or ‘malfunctioning’ in the body.
3. Placebo affect from knee operations
A study has shown a remarkable placebo effect on knee operations. A group of people were selected with the same knee problems and surgery was proposed. One group got the real operation as proposed. A placebo group just got the incision but no real changes on the inside of the knee. Guess what! All persons from both groups got better. If the problem would really have been in the knee, the placebo-group should still have pain. So, something is going on that makes the pain go away which has nothing to do with the operation.
Another proof that body work is not giving permanent back pain relief
4. Depending on where you have your MRI, you’ll get different diagnoses and treatments
A research has been done where the MRI of a 64-year-old woman has been sent to 10 different centres to interpret the MRI, give a diagnosis and propose treatment. Guess what, there were 10 different interpretations and hence different treatments that were proposed.
If there is no unified vision on what is and what is not causing pain and how to resolve it, this is not giving confidence on what really is the cause of your pain and how to get the desired pain relief?
5. Spinal surgeries not really successful in the long term
Studies have been done which indicate that working on the body in the form of spinal fusion surgeries are not giving long term pain relief. Think twice if you want to get the medical intervention as these are not without risk either.
According to Dr. Rosomoff, a neuro-surgeon, only in 3% of the cases a herniated disc needs to be operated upon. He argued that ‘backs don’t fail, doctors do’.
6. Pain killers and opioids use
In the USA there is a real opioids crisis going on with pain killers. The USA have 5% of the world population, but they consume 80% of the world opioids. This is huge. More and more problems arise with the increasing use of pain killers. It gives sides effects, is addictive, errors with prescriptions and quantities. Even 128 people die every day of an overdose due to opioids.
So working on the body with pain killers is not giving permanent back pain relief.
Stress and the biopsychosocial model
As become clear from the above, working on the body has proven not to be very successful in the past for giving permanent pain relief. What everybody does agree with, is that stress increases back pain. We all have busy lives and we face many challenges in this fast-paced world. This results in loads of internal pressures. Stressed to manage deadlines, keep your self-image up. What few know is that stress is at the cause of most chronic pain. Some stress is cause by Diversion Pain Syndrome. Read more here.
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