The Layers of Chronic Pain

Chronic Pain has Extensive Layers

By the time you step into a medical office to seek care your body has built up multiple layers of problems.

Our bodies are amazing machines, and because of that we only tend to notice the primary problem. Imagine noticing every single ache, pain, or discomfort. You’d go crazy!

When it comes to musculoskeletal care we see this in 100% of our patients.

The pain that brings you into our office is typically just one layer of your problem. Common layers of problems, or diagnoses, are:

Layer 1 - Fibrous adhesion

Layer 2 - Lumbar disc injury

Layer 3 - Muscle weakness

Layer 4 - Sciatic nerve entrapment

The first thing we do differently and more accurately is diagnose all the layers of your problem.

Our treatments at Functional Pain Relief reduce the fibrous adhesion layer and improve strength. That helps put the disc injury in a healthy environment and keeps it de-inflamed.

What you may notice after we treat adhesion is a new symptom.

That means we’ve reached a new layer to your problem. This is nothing new or confusing for us. In fact, most times we are excited because we are one step closer to getting you better. It may seem like we’ve taken a step back but in reality we have uncovered the source of your pain.

Think of this like an iceberg.

From the surface you only see the tip of a giant hunk of ice floating seamlessly in the sea. When you look below the surface you see the entirety of the iceberg and realize it’s much bigger than you originally thought.

So, when treating chronic pain if the treatment is only focused on one layer without addressing the others you will find a surprise much larger than you were hoping. Your pain will persist or even worse you will build another layer.

Rest assured when you are under our care we will make sure we diagnose every layer first. Then we will have a game plan ready for when we get to a new layer. 

Yours in health,

~Dr. Seth Schultz