As you know, many people come to see me seeking pain relief. Whether it’s back pain, headaches, shoulder pain, or arthritis, my patients want a safe and natural solution that works.

My philosophy has always been offer pain relief as quickly as possible so that you can get on with your daily life, BUT ALSO heal the underlying condition that’s causing the pain.

The reason I take this approach is because if I only treat your pain and symptoms, and not the reason why you have the pain or symptoms, then even if you feel better, your body still has problems that have not been fixed. And what do you think will happen if the underlying reason for having pain hasn’t been healed? That’s right, the pain and symptoms will more than likely return.

The best results always happen when you focus on both…making you feel better AND healing your body. Make sense?

With that being said, today I wanted to teach you a little bit about pain. Pain is your body’s way of telling you that something is wrong. Here’s how it works:

Pain begins with the peripheral nerves. These nerves extend from your skin, muscles, and internal organs to your spinal cord. These nerves may be sensitive to touch, movement, and even temperature changes. When these nerves are stimulated, they send pain messages to your spinal cord. These messages are then relayed to the brain.

Now that you know that pain involves the nerves, let’s talk about how you can get faster relief while you are getting chiropractic and/or spinal decompression care.

As I just mentioned, your peripheral nerves are responsive to the sensations of hot and cold. You can take advantage of this and prevent pain messages from reaching the brain by masking them with a different message.

How you do this is by using topical treatments to distract your nervous system from the pain you are experiencing.

One option you have is ice. Putting ice on the area of pain is often useful at decreasing swelling and inflammation, as well as making the area feel better. I recommend you putting ice on a painful area for 15 to 20 minutes and then taking it off. After 45 minutes, do it again if you like. You can repeat this cycle of 15 to 20 minutes on…45 minutes off, as much as you need to.

Another option you have is heat. Applying a heat pack to the area of pain can sometimes provide relief. Use the same advice with heat that I gave you for ice.

A third option is a topical treatment like BioFreeze. This is a gel that you rub into the area of pain. There are “pain masking” ingredients in BioFreeze that penetrate the skin and trigger a response in the nerves.

I often recommend these 3 options to my patients. We have BioFreeze and ice/hot packs in the office that you can purchase.

Now, even though these treatments won’t permanently eliminate your pain or fix the problem causing the pain like chiropractic care can, they can provide temporary relief that is often vital to getting through the day.

So try adding a few of these options to your chiropractic care. You might find that it helps you when you aren’t feeling your best.

Yours for health, naturally,

Dr. Steven Alff