Do you have a disproportionate response to injury?
Patients often attend the practice with severe pains due to a relatively minor injury, this may be due to central sensitisation. For instance, someone who has a strain in the lower back and is also suffering from irritable bowel syndrome has a much greater chance of feeling pain and a persistence of pain, compared to someone who has the same back injury but no irritable bowel syndrome. The latter may not feel pain at all. So unrelated health issues have to be considered, which may in fact effect the injury through sensitisation. The higher centres of the brain can also affect sensitisation, so if a patient is anxious or depressed they will feel the pain much more acutely.
When treating someone who is sensitised it is important to address the other factors involved. I have found acupuncture and cranial osteopathy are great tools. Recently I saw a patient who was suffering from severe, persistent neck and shoulder pain. She said that she had the problem for over a year and nothing the doctor had to offer helped. She was working in a very stressful job, she was not eating proper meals and did not have boundaries between her work and home life. I treated her with osteopathy and acupuncture but also gave her advice. She improved her diet, eating more fruit and vegetables and she made sure that she took time to quietly eat lunch and dinner without interruption. She also made sure that she worked specific hours and did not allow work to seep into leisure time. She now feels much healthier, sleeps better and no longer suffers from a neck and shoulder problem.
