The Medication Illusion, Chronic Pain, and Massage Therapy

The Medication Illusion

Don’t be fooled by medication. Pain relief drugs don’t solve the problem; they only sweep it under the rug for a while. Pain is your body sending you a message to pay attention; something is not right, and you need to find out what it is. Medication can help you temporarily while you investigate what’s going on, but it’s not a permanent solution. If you have pain in your lower back, neck, shoulder, or anywhere, find a practitioner who can help you assess the cause of your pain and find the right treatment. Most of these pains can be successfully treated and go away if you find the real problem and a skilled practitioner. The conversation around the medication illusion, chronic pain, and massage therapy is an important one. Let us uncover the truth about medication and how massage therapy can be more beneficial.

Pharmaceutical companies, who spend billions of dollars on television ads, would like you to believe that taking their medication is your permanent solution.  They want you to take it for the rest of your life. Medications are amazing for temporary relief, but they have many side effects that slowly compromise the health of your body.  And they also fool you into thinking you are fine.

 

Massage Therapist Explains: Pain Medication Causes Reinjury

A problem with medication is that you believe that the pain is gone.  Then, you do way more than you should because the pain signals your body relies on are interrupted by the medication that has temporarily muted your pain.  This is often when people reinjure themselves and get worse. You don’t usually feel it until you wake up the next morning because when the body is warmed up you don’t feel the pain.

 

What to Expect During a Massage Therapy Assessment

You know you are having a professional assessment of a pain problem when the practitioner takes 30 to 45 minutes. They take a detailed history and then perform a series of hands-on physical in-the-office tests. For example, if you have a lower back problem, you should be asked to bend in all four directions to see if this reproduces your pain. Then, a series of resistance tests should be performed on your legs, feet, and toes to check all of your nerves. Then, your reflexes should be checked.

If your neck is bothering you, after a thorough history, the practitioners should move your head in all six directions you see here. Then, a series of resistance tests should be performed on your shoulder, upper arm, forearm, and hand to check all of the nerves. Then, your reflexes should be checked.

 

Most pain and injury problems can be assessed in the office, but for more serious pain problems, X-rays, MRIs, and CT scans may also be necessary. The culprit in most cases is adhesive scar tissue. Scar tissue forms to help you heal, but in many cases, the scar tissue forms poorly and keeps tearing and healing again. The source of most pain in the body that is not caused by disease, is this badly formed adhesive scarring. If a skilled practitioner can find the adhesive scar tissue and eliminate it, the pain you have will likely go away.

The Dangers of Not Seeing a Physician

It’s always important to see a physician if you have chronic pain. You don’t want to miss an early diagnosis of a serious problem that a doctor can provide. Let me give you a few examples of what I mean. If you have pain lifting your arm above 90 degrees to the side, you could have a shoulder injury, but you could also have a tumor in the lung. When you lift your arm above 90 degrees, it moves the lung, disturbing a tumor and causing pain.

Let’s say you have pain in both of your heels. That could be plantar fasciitis, but it could also be the venereal disease gonorrhea. A severe headache could be a migraine, but it could also indicate a brain tumor. So be careful. Always see a physician when you have pain; they may not be a specialist in the kinds of aches and pains we are talking about, but they can spot a serious condition better than any other type of healthcare practitioner.

 

 

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Ben E. Benjamin holds a Ph.D. in Sports Medicine and was the founder and President of the Muscular Therapy Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  He is the author of dozens of articles on working with injuries and chronic pain as well as the widely used books in the field, Are You Tense?, Exercise Without Injury and Listen To Your Pain: The Active Person’s Guide to Understanding, Identifying and Treating Pain and Injury. Dr. Benjamin has been in private practice for over 50 years and teaches therapists throughout the country.