You May Have A Screw Loose

Biochemical Injuries

Occasionally I am asked to explain biomechanical injuries to people, especially when they are recurrent (come back).  The question is, did they go away in the first place, or if not, what happened to them? Why do some injuries improve, or go away completely, and then return – even weeks, months or years later?

Of course, we always have the possibility of re-injury. You would notice that right away. You bend over and “ZING” there is the pain, all over again. Uh, oh, better call the chiropractor and get an appointment. (And he’s going to scold me because I have not been doing my exercises!) But this time, it was not like that – you just woke up, and there it is all over again. Or at the end of the day, after a full day of activity, you started feeling it all over again.

So sometimes the problem just comes back. OK. So, here is a helpful analogy for you.

Did you ever have a hinge with screw that was loose? Most of the time, the hinge works just fine, but the screw is still loose. you can’t tighten it, because the material underneath the screw is stripped out.  So you just push it in and keep using the hinge.

Many injuries in your body can behave like that. A joint develops a sloppiness, overstretch, the materials distorted by forces (including gravity or your weight), and much like a hinge with a screw loose, will misbehave under the right circumstances, the right angle of bending, the right combination of force and stress. We call this “a subluxation”, or in other terms, “a wiggly or stuck joint”.

In the “Hinge” situation, I would go to Home Depot (http://www.homedepot.com) and get some special glue to harden up the screw hole. Then the screw will hold – maybe forever, maybe for a while. There are some things that a provider can do to help “your body” hold your screws.  Otherwise – they will continue to wiggle. At the worst times, of course. Some of these repairs are up to your body in the long run, but a provider can help activate them. It may take a while, and the reality is, it may never be 100%. This is simply a fact of life.  It all depends on the screw, on the glue, and on you.  Oh, right, and also on me.

What we are going to do is try to stabilize your areas of concern, especially if you have a screw loose.