Chiropractor Chapel Hill, NC
Doctors of Chiropractic and Medicine use tenderness and pain to diagnose health conditions. Tenderness refers to sensations elicited by touch or movement, whereas pain reflects other irritating feelings. Tenderness is an objective finding and something the practitioner finds upon moving or touching body areas. In contrast, pain is a subjective experience of the patient, not necessarily elicited by the doctor moving or touching body areas. At Acupractic Natural Healing Center, the chiropractic and acupuncture offices of Dr. Lisa Oskardmay in Chapel Hill, we strive to help people identify and reduce pain and tenderness naturally while regaining a full range of motion, strength, and ability.
Many people try to avoid pain and things that cause pain. Patients avoid specific movements or positions that irritate them. Patients may reduce participation in activities that provoke aches. They may even take pain pills, apply pain-relieving ointments and take other steps to mitigate distressing feelings. Over time, these body-mind accommodations impact the quality of life, strength, and flexibility and even affect the ability to heal. Part of the healing journey is discovering where pain exists in the mind and body and then taking helpful steps to reduce or alleviate symptoms while regaining lost range of motion, flexibility, and strength.
Patients come into our natural healing center with health concerns such as pain, stress, insomnia, and other symptoms. During the examination, Dr. Oskardmay palpates and moves the patient’s back and extremities to determine areas of imbalance, pain, and flexibility. Frequently patients report areas of tenderness or pain in regions they didn’t know about before examination. In part, these unknown areas of tenderness exist because people avoid moving or using painful body regions. These areas, combined with areas of concern they know about, become part of the treatment plan as Dr. Oskardmay works to rebuild balance, strength, and pain-free flexibility.
For instance, patients may be unaware of tightness in the mid-low back around the twelfth thoracic vertebra. Chiropractic adjustments to restore pain-free vertebral and rib motion at that level can help improve digestion and diaphragm movement. Alternatively, tenderness in the clavicle region of the shoulders can influence breathing and head position. After an adjustment or even acupuncture treatment in this critical region, patients report better respiration and can stand up straighter. Sometimes people are unaware of tightness in their calf muscles. Massage and mobilization of a patient’s calf muscles impact their ability to walk and balance and restore blood flow from the lower extremity to the heart.
While we don’t usually think of it this way, pain is a gift that keeps us from harming ourselves. Tenderness is pain that is hidden from us. To experience the fullness of life, embrace limitations and move beyond them, and consider natural care that discovers, educates, and heals. Call the chiropractic and acupuncture offices of Dr. Lisa Oskardmay today at 919-929-1400, or visit us online 24 hours a day to learn more about the benefits of complemental alternative medicine in the Triangle at Acupractic Natural Healing Center, servicing the Triangle since 1995.