Pain: What is causing it?
As a chiropractor, I am trained in differential diagnosis. This is one of my practice privileges that sets me apart from physical therapists, personal trainers, amateur alternative healers and your neighbor. When choosing a doctor to examine you to determine the cause of your pain, it’s important to choose someone that has a handle on what they are examining.
Take pain, for example. Is your alternative healer prepared to determine what is causing your pain? Here are some causes of pain, and their characteristics:
Sclerotogenous referred pain. Sclerotogenous pain does not follow a dermatomal pattern. A dermatomoal pattern is where certain nerves go to a specific part of the skin. Pinching a nerve will cause numbness in a dermatome. Sclerotogenous pain, though, comes from the muscle, tendon or ligament. A sclerotogenous pain referral will refer pain away from the area that is injured. It refers deep and it refers diffuse. It’s pain that is hard to point to.
Visceral pain referral. This is like sclerotogenous pain, but instead of coming from injured muscles, it comes from the guts. If you have pancreatitis, you might feel deep, diffuse pain to the midback.
Bone pain. A broken bone will also give you deep pain, but this will feel even deeper–to the bone. Trauma may indicate thatthere is a fracture, and this may need x-ray imaging. When no trauma is present, x-ray, bone scan, CT scan or MRI may be indicated to determine where the pain is coming from.
Bursitis, carpal tunnel syndrome, patellofemoral syndrome, overuse injuries, pronator teres syndrome, strain vs. strain or migraine headaches also need an extensive knowledge of the depth and breadth of differential diagnosis. If you have a problem that you need looked at, or if you need a second opinion, call our office to schedule an appointment for your own working diagnosis.
Todd Lloyd, DC
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Acute pain can usually be linked directly to the noxious influence or injury that caused the pain, like the pain you feel after burning your skin or following a surgical intervention.
For chronic pain the connection is far more difficult to establish as the original cause of pain might not exist any longer and the nerves may have become oversensitive and react already to the slightest stimulus, which would not cause any pain in otherwise healthy subjects.