What are Symptoms?

Many of our patients are symptom-orientated, but we, as clinicians, know that there is a lot more going on beneath the surface. This video helps you understand that symptoms are a bit like the fire alarm going off. To get rid of the problem, we must put out the fire, not just turn off the alarm…

A transcript of the video follows.

What are Symptoms Studies Video Transcript

If you are visiting your chiropractor today because you have a symptom such as pain, is important to understand that troublesome symptoms don’t appear out of thin air. They build up over time, like the analogy of straws on a camel’s back. Hundreds of straws are stacked up over time. Yet with the addition of the thousandth tiny straw, the camel’s back suddenly breaks.

It’s the same with symptoms. The problem can build up unnoticed over time. Then suddenly symptoms make themselves known. In a big way. A symptom may only be the tip of the iceberg with a much bigger problem lying under the surface. After all, a symptom is just a symptom. It’s not the cause. Symptoms are a bit like the fire alarm going off to warn you that there is a problem. The fire alarm is not the problem. The fire is, so don’t turn off the alarm and ignore the problem. Go find the cause and put out the fire.

For a chiropractor to help you.

It may take a number of visits if your symptoms or problem took time to build up to the level that it is today.

More often than not, it will take time to resolve it too.

It’s also important to understand the symptoms may be due to dysfunction in a part of the spine that seems unrelated to the problem area.

Here’s an example. It may be that you have pain in your left knee. It’s hard to imagine that this pain could have anything to do with your spine, but if your spine is not moving properly, it may be interrupting the flow of information from your leg to your brain and back again. And because of this, your leg may be receiving faulty messages from your brain, which means that your knee moves in a less than ideal way, and poor movements sustained over time can often create an imbalance in your body that may cause pain. Remember that your body is one big interconnected system. No part of it operates in isolation.

The objective of chiropractic care is to restore healthy communication throughout your body and to maintain this communication over time, leading to better function, less accidents, and a healthier you.

References

1. Complaint of Knee Pain. The Journal of Spinal Cord Medicine 2010;33(4):431-34. doi: 10.1080/10790268.2010.11689724
2. Haas M, Spegman A, Peterson D, et al. Dose response and efficacy of spinal manipulation for chronic cervicogenic headache: a pilot randomized controlled trial. The spine journal 2010;10(2):117-28.
3. Haas M, Vavrek D, Peterson D, et al. Dose-response and efficacy of spinal manipulation for care of chronic low back pain: a randomized controlled trial. The Spine Journal 2014;14(7):1106-16.
4. Buckland AJ, Miyamoto R, Patel RD, et al. Differentiating hip pathology from lumbar spine pathology: key points of evaluation and management. JAAOS-Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons 2017;25(2):e23-e34.
5. Haavik H, Murphy B. The role of spinal manipulation in addressing disordered sensorimotor integration and altered motor control. Journal of Electromyography and Kinesiology 2012;22(5):768-76.
6. Holt KR, Haavik H, Lee ACL, et al. Effectiveness of Chiropractic Care to Improve Sensorimotor Function Associated With Falls Risk in Older People: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics 2016;39(4):267-78. doi: 10.1016/j.jmpt.2016.02.003

© Haavik Research

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