Every BODY Tells A Story
What is your body saying?
This quote popped into my inbox this week and the more that I thought about it the more that I realized how very true it is. Carol and I realize how fortunate we are. Every day, our patients come to us to share their aches and pains and give us the opportunity to help them to rewrite their story.
Earlier this week, I had a new patient who described her injury in great detail, including where she feels her pain, how intense it is, how it affects her day, etc... But she did not tell me the STORY. She was only focused on the pain that she was feeling, not the steps that got her to that point. In her mind, her lower back pain came on when she bent down to lift a piece of garbage from the floor. What are the odds that picking up that piece of garbage was the sole cause of her lower back pain? The odds are very slim considering she walked into the office pushing her infant daughter in a stroller. Without needing to ask her, I knew that she had to have been lifting her daughter, who I have to assume weighs more than the piece of garbage that she picked up. Do you think that it would be reasonable to assume that she is not getting a full 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep with the newest addition to her family? How do you think her nutrition is at this point? Do you think that she is exercising regularly yet? All of these things play a role in her lower back pain, but like most people, she is focused on the one incident that SEEMED to cause her pain, rather than focusing on all of the other things that may have contributed along the way. When your body wants to tell you a story, take a moment to shut up and listen!
Movement is my Medicine,
