That’s always the focus when people come into the office. This hurts, that hurts, and they want to know why. In trauma cases, this is an easy answer. Something is torn or broken, and it needs to heal. But what if you didn’t have a fall, slip, accident, etc... that started your pain? What if it just started as a sore knee after running and then got worse and never
went away? This is where the answer gets interesting. Pain is an alert from your body that something is wrong. This is an important mechanism designed to protect you from injuring yourself further. The challenge is we can’t plug you into a computer and have it tell us why you are experiencing pain or what is generating the pain. The pain my patients are experiencing is usually not where their true issue is located (outside of traumatic injuries). Just today, I had a patient who was sure they would have to stop running, need an MRI, and potential
surgery because their knee was killing them while running. After going through a functional-movement assessment and physical exam; however, it was obvious that the issue wasn’t their knee at all. It was the lack of motion in their hip, leading to compensation stress on the knee. After some hip mobilization and control exercises, the patient was able to run up and down the hallway pain-free. This case is just one of many examples as to why it’s so important to seek out a provider who can perform a thorough exam and get to the true cause of your pain. So next time you are experiencing pain- give me a call to get it checked out!