Experiencing pain can be like losing your keys right before you are leaving for work. You frantically look in all the typical places they should be but if you don’t find them there you are often left feeling hopeless, lost, and kicking yourself for not keeping your house tidy and the keys in the same place all the time. Sometimes we are fortunate and find the keys, other times it takes turning the house upside down to find them. You may be inundated by the stress of being late to work or frustrated at yourself for making the same mistake you vowed to never make again. Decision time comes after the dust has settled. Do you go on with business as usual and chalk it up to bad luck? Do you do some cleaning up so there are less places to lose them? Or do you build a routine you can count on that puts you in the best position to keep household operations running smooth no matter what comes your way?

For many, pain can seem like it comes out of the blue. Outside of trauma or accidents it can be hard to determine why you are hurting in the first place. Maybe you did something you have done a thousand times and then, suddenly, something was different. Perhaps you didn’t do anything at all and like a flu or cold, you start to feel discomfort and aching pain spreading out of control. There are many ways pain and dysfunction can show itself but much like the analogy earlier, it can be hard to predict when the clutter and chaos of your body will catch up to you and you “lose your keys”.  Imbalances in the body build over time and often go unnoticed if pain is not the direct result. The jump from a body that is not moving as well as it can (dysfunction) to a body that is now in pain AND not moving well is much smaller.  

When looking at the body things are not always as clear cut as seeing stacks of paper on the kitchen table or a laundry room that looks like a tornado ran through it. By themselves, they can be relatively harmless. Unfolded laundry has probably never grabbed your keys and hid them under itself. It’s when things go wrong that those housekeeping items make the biggest difference. So, what can you do to maintain good function and reduce the impact imbalances have on your body? Restore proper movement, maintain it, and use it! 

Whether you come in to see one of our chiropractors, physical therapy team, or both our goal is not just to give you relief of your pain (hand you your keys) but to improve your overall state of being by “cleaning up the mess” so that you are less likely to lose your keys in the first place. The idea of spring cleaning seems appropriate for this time of year as we see people getting back into the swing of activities after a winter where many of us have less active lifestyles and allowed imbalances to build. We usually need to do a little bit more work to get the house to a good point and once it is there, keeping it there is easier than waiting for you to lose the keys again and starting the cycle over.

Dr. Conrad Bush is a graduate of Palmer College of Chiropractic. He has special interests in weight loss, biomechanics, extremities, and sports rehab. He is certified in Active Release Technique, which focuses on treating the soft tissue system of the body.