Q: I am now 65 and feeling like I am 90. I have always felt some level of pain in my body for the last 20 years but thought that was normal. Now I cannot golf nor do yardwork anymore and I feel depressed often. Is that normal? Can chiropractic be helpful to get my life back? I am too young to feel this way!
A: As people age, the body develops more aches and pains. Life gradually wears the body down, whether through traumas like accidents, or just through the daily grind. Too many people decide that living with pain is something they have to do. Chronic pain, however, is not something anyone has to—or should—just live with.
Living with constant pain can take an emotional toll on a person. In addition to being physically debilitating, it can affect your work performance and disrupt your personal life. When this happens you have left the problem go too long.
If chronic pain forces you to start to give up portions of your life, depression can set in. It’s thought that depression is three to four times more common among people with chronic pain than in the general population. As your body deals with pain more frequently over longer periods of time, you literally become a pain sensing machine as the nerves that sense pain actually grow in number of endings.
One of the most common locations for chronic pain is the lower back. If that’s the source of your problem, chiropractic treatment has been proven effective in easing the discomfort. It may not be that you are “cured” from your pain… that may not be a realistic goal, but in many cases we learn how to manage the pain and keep you functioning in life to be able to do the things that make life enjoyable for you. and that is a great way to avoid depression. The best part is, everything can be done naturally and without relying on the use of drugs. Regardless of the location of your pain, visit a chiropractor for a thorough exam. He/she will be able to treat you, help you develop strategies for coping, or refer you to another health provider when needed.
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