THE specific BLOG

Understanding & Managing Chronic Pain in Men

Millions of people each and every day wake up and moan and groan as they try to get out of bed. It can be a struggle to get the body warmed up, get all the creaks out of our muscles and joints, and start to feel ready to take on the day. Understanding and managing chronic pain in men, and women as well, is something that can play a major role in our overall health and wellness. Around 20% of men in the United States experience chronic pain on a daily basis. Why is this and how can we fix this?

Understanding & Managing Chronic Pain in Men

First thing’s first…men are wayyy less likely to seek out any sort of help for their health than women are. With that being said a guy can have a health issue that maybe starts out somewhat small but overtime can turn into something that becomes really serious. The amount of guys that come into the office because they threw out their back or neck picking up something that’s relatively small or light is astounding. Once we go deeper into their health history we start to see that some sort of pain or discomfort has been going on for years and years but it was simply ignored because it wasn’t that serious. It’s not until a large event happens where they really can’t do anything when they decide they need help.

At this point it’s not the worst thing in the world that this event happened. I think it is a wake up call to a lot of men out there who realize that they need to start taking their health a lot more seriously. When I hear this story from guys who come in I am never surprised and here is why. If there is some sort of pain or discomfort going on for years and years there is obviously an internal problem going on. The feeling of pain or symptoms is never a bad thing…I repeat, symptoms are never a bad thing! It’s the body’s natural way of telling us that something is wrong. If we ignore this for too long then something more severe is going to happen, this is when we suddenly throw our back out.

There is a constant imbalance going on within the body and when there is enough stress on the system something has to let go, that is often some sort of muscular imbalance and nervous system dysfunction causing extreme pain. When a guy comes in and tells me how they threw out their back it is usually during a time where there is a lot of other stress in their life, which makes sense based on what I just described.

How Can We Help With Chronic Pain

At The Specific Chiropractic Center Naples our main goal is to balance the nervous system. I know this doesn’t sound like it has anything to do with chronic pain but it absolutely does. How do you think a pain message gets sent to the brain, or how do you actually feel the sensation of pain? That is the job of the nervous system.

When there is imbalance with the nervous system other things in the body get screwed up or out of whack. Muscles will start to engage that shouldn’t be engaged, organs might not be working properly, so on and so forth. With all of this happening it can start to cause those small aches and pains. Over time those aches and pains turn into chronic pain. This is all because the nervous system isn’t working at 100%.

Our goal as The Specific Chiropractic Center Naples is to get the nervous system back to proper working order. When someone first comes in we run a functional thermography test of their nervous system to see what is going on with their body as a whole. Are things working correctly or incorrectly? Whenever someone first comes in, especially if they have thrown out their back or neck, we see dysfunction going on throughout the entire body, not just that one specific area where the pain is. This makes complete sense as we just talked about how when we experience this it is usually due to some sort of smaller issue we have been ignoring for months or years.

When someone starts care we often see that their initial thrown out back or neck gets better relatively quickly. The important thing is to maintain care to get rid of that chronic pain that was going on that caused the big flare up in the first place. Usually getting full relief or resolution from that takes many months as it has been going for many years.

This can become really frustrating because it may start to feel like we aren’t achieving anything. The care we provide at The Specific results in baby steps when we are talking about chronic pain. It’s important for people to keep a journal or to really try and remember how they felt for so many years. As we continue with care and get the nervous system more and more balanced we are able to melt away that chronic pain that was always somewhat bothersome. We have people come in all the time reminiscing about what it was like to live with chronic pain for so many years, whether that be something that limited what they could do on a daily basis or something that was just nagging in the background.

By getting your nervous system in check and back to working at 100% function you too can be free of chronic pain. Men are the least likely to do something about any sort of discomfort they have going on but I am here to tell you that there is an option out there that is drug free and will provide freedom back to your health. If you are someone who throws out their back or neck every year, or someone who deals with chronic pain then reach out to me, I’m sure we can get you back to feeling how you deserve to feel!