Fibromyalgia
ü Why it is so elusive
ü Why most approaches fail.
ü What makes my practice different… and effective
ü What we do that works so well
Painful… Chronic… Life-wrecking… Baffling to MD’s and chiropractors alike.
Fibromyalgia is vague, diffuse, multiple-cause, elusive of relief let alone a cure.
There is no one answer. No one correction.
MD’s hand out powerful painkillers, to little effect.
Chiropractors claim it comes from irritated nerve roots in your spine, adjust every vertebra from neck to pelvis and offer mere minutes of relief. If that.
Massage therapy feels great… usually… until you stand up afterward. Even getting a chiropractic adjustment immediately after has little lasting effect.
So, how do we get results?
Fibromyalgia has many causes. Usually, many are involved. Multiple causes require the need for multiple forms of correction taken simultaneously. A prescription here, a few chiropractic visits there, won’t do it.
That’s what most treatments do. One thing at a time. “One cause, one cure”. How’s that working for you?
First of all, we need to recognize that fibromyalgia does not arise in the muscles, where painkillers may reduce its effect. It does not arise in the nerve roots, where chiropractic adjustments may help. And while emotional trauma is often involved, it is not a psychological issue, either. Consider all three a possible piece of the whole, but never focus on just one.
Fibromyalgia often arises in your brain, a result of mis-firing neurons in your cerebellum and parietal lobes.
It is NOT a mental issue or brain damage. It is not “in your head”, although that is the physical location.
One of the most common, yet under-recognized health issues we face is low firing of the nerve cells – neurons – in the back or lower parts of your brain. Such neurons are not lower in the functional sense, as simpler life or less function, but they are simply located in the back of your brain. Your stomach is not less important than your lungs simply because it is located lower in your thorax. Similarly, all brain parts are important regardless of their geography.
Of course, your brain – all of it – is a well-organized mass of nerve cells. Nerve cells are not round like most cells. They are more shaped like a short rope. When nerve cells work, they are said to “fire”. An electrical signal zips through the nerve from one end to the other, and passes like a spark to the next nerve, where the same process happens again and again and again one nerve cell to the next to the signal’s destination, where the massage is delivered and something happens.
Your cerebellum coordinates you. Every bit of function from the automatic (digesting food) to the conscious and deliberate (picking up a small object) passes through your cerebellum, where general orders to do something are streamlined into specific channels. Without your cerebellum, your movements would be ill-aimed and clumsy. With it, you can smoothly pick up a pin.
OK. Motor function – doing stuff – is about out-bound nerve signals. (Nerve fibers are one-way, inbound and outbound from your brain. Senses (information) go in, and instructions go out.) …
Now, inbound signals getting messed up in the cerebellum usually cause pain. The pain feels like it is in your body… all over your body, like fibromyalgia, but actually happens somewhere else. So, if you have pain arising from cerebellum neurons under-firing but it feels like it is in your low back… which makes more sense to treat? The cerebellum or the back?
A mis- or under-firing cerebellum can be corrected with neurological stimulation in the form of specific exercises. We think of exercise as muscular, as in walking or lifting weights. Neurological exercises are specific activities meant to cause massive firing of the cells in your cerebellum (or other brain parts as needed) thus getting them back on track.
Our approach is to combine specific, focused chiropractic adjustments with neurological exercises both in-office and at home, thus correcting two neurological issues at the same time. We restore proper nerve firing at your very core – your brain – while simultaneously clearing out nerve irritation (and pain-generating signals) in your spine.
About those adjustments – you may have heard about (or experienced) old-fashioned rack-‘em-crack-‘em adjustments in the past. Maybe they helped, maybe they didn’t. Maybe you got worse. Bear this in mind: … That approach is obsolete. Has been for 25+ years. Today’s work is highly refined, highly specific, and will focus on clearing problems with your nerve system, not “re-aligning” bones. We will adjust only one side, not roll this way and roll that way to “get ‘em all”. The underlying reason is to stimulate the weak side of your cerebellum and restore neural balance. That is where real healing takes place.
To make care smoother and more comfortable, and to make sure you progress as fast as possible, we use supporting therapies such as massage, heat, electrical stimulation, and others. While no more than temporary relief if used alone, these therapies combine nicely with adjustments and nerve exercises to create a more effective treatment regimen.
It’s not overnight. You didn’t get his way quickly, but little by little. You can’t just snap back. And, set-backs do happen, but are not defeating unless you quit. After all, in the process of getting worse, didn’t you have some good or better days along the way? Likewise, you’ll have bad or worse days as you get better. And maybe worse will happen first. It is part of the process, so hang in there. Look at the overall trend. If today is bad, but the last few days are better than last month, we are making progress.
By thinking “outside the box”… or in this case, “inside the skull” ……..
…….. make that inside the BRAIN ……..
we have high confidence in getting even the worst fibromyalgia sufferers well.
That is what we do, and why The Healthy Place Optimum Health is different from other chiropractic offices. In fact, different from just about any other health care office, period.