El Cajon Chiropractor - Prescription painkillers - Cure or band-aid?

When you have a back ache, headache, tooth ache, or any ache, many people turned to over-the-counter or prescription painkillers for relief.  My question is this...does this painkiller actually heal the body, or does it only mask the pain?  I liken this to the following analogy - When the check engine light comes on in your car - do you put a piece of tape over the light so that it doesn't bother you, or do you take your car to the mechanic?

Most of you would do the latter.  While tooth aches are most of the time out of my scope, other aches and pains of the body are in my wheel house.  I often ask my patients "why does your back, knee, or elbow hurt and someone else's doesn't?  Are you unlucky?  Were born under a bad sign?  Did a black cat cross your path?"  Of course not.  There is a cause behind your pain.  Pain is transmitted via nerves from the source of the pain back through the spinal cord to the brain.  When nerves are irritated or compressed by the vertebrae of the spine, pain is often experienced.  Misalignments of the vertebrae are called subluxations and they have a lot to do with chronic pain in many cases.  You may be asking yourself "why would my spine be 'out-of-whack'"?  Remember that car accident a few or many years ago?  That one where you "didn't get hurt".  Or what about that time in high school during cheerleading practice where they dropped you on your butt or neck.  That time when you slipped and fell and it only hurt for a little while.  Or what about that time when you were a kid and you fell of the swing or the see-saw.

Many of these accidents go without major pain at the time, but they begin an injury process that doesn't mature until much later, like today.
The problem with painkillers is that they work.  Their job is to relieve pain, a job that most times, they do very well.  Here is where the problem lies - with the pain gone, temporarily, people think that they have "cured" themselves.  The painful muscle spasms that can occur with acute or chronic injuries is the body signaling you that the area must be protected and rested.  After popping a couple of painkillers, people feel well enough to go about their day, possibly causing further injury.  After the acute period passes, the muscles calm down and the pain often dies down as well.  However the damaged joint is now frozen in place and forces the adjacent joints to do double the work, beginning the damage process on those as well.  Let this process continue and you've got the perfect recipe for a chronic, painful condition down the road.

Here's the take-home lesson.  Fix the problem.  If you get to the root of the problem and repair the damage when it happens, not only will you not need to take painkillers, but you'll be saving yourself from future chronic-pain conditions.

Dr. Dennis Barker DC is a Chiropractor in the Community of Fletcher Hills serving the cities of El Cajon, La Mesa, Santee and all of San Diego County.

Visit us at www.fletcherhillschiropractic.com and www.facebook.com/fletcherhillschiro