Pain Management

When you're in pain, everything suffers - your work, your hobbies, your relationships, your self-esteem and your hope that things will ever get better. Yet it is estimated that more than 50 million Americans live with chronic pain on a daily basis! And most are either resigned to the fact that their pain will never go away, or that they will be on prescription pain killers for the rest of their lives.

So if you or someone you care about is in pain, you need to know - pain management is possible, the natural way.

Your pain is there to tell you something. Masking it with medications may numb you to its presence, but pain is the symptom of a problem that will persist in your body until a trained health professional takes the time to find its source. And that is precisely what we do here at Southwest Integrative Medicine.

Extensively trained in holistic health care, we find the cause of pain and treat the whole person, assessing physical, mental and spiritual needs. Though natural pain management is ideal, ours is an integrative medical practice so we do prescribe prescription medications that work well when used in conjunction with natural remedies.

The cause of your pain may stem from more than once source in your body, but there is often an underlying theme that connects them all:

• Tissue damage. When cells are damaged - from car accident injuries to autoimmune disorders like rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus and other joint diseases - these damaged cells release chemical messengers to alert the immune system that something is wrong. In response, the immune system creates inflammation that causes the pain. So getting rid of the pain means healing the damaged cells.
• Inflammation. Any number of conditions can cause inflammation leading to pain, like osteoarthritis, asthma, chronic sinusitis, muscle spasms, joint dysfunction and migraines. The automatic response among most conventional doctors is to treat the symptom(s) with medications that cover up the problem. But not only do these pain killers have unwelcome side effects, they also prevent you from discovering and treating the true source of your illness, which is the only true path to healing.
• Structural imbalances. When your joints are unaligned because of structural imbalances - such as postural problems, injures or over-worked muscles - it creates friction and pulling. This can lead to tissue damage, which is the cause of the inflammation that triggers muscle spasms and, of course, pain. So stopping the pain means assessing and correcting this structural imbalance.
• Tight muscles. Whether stemming from old injuries or an inherent lack of flexibility, tight muscles can cause muscle spasms. These spasms press on nerves and pull structures out of alignment, which creates tissue damage, then inflammation, then pain. We can help release the tightness in your muscles so that your joints can be restored to normal alignment - for back pain, neck pain, migraines, headaches and more.
• Qi Stagnation. Generally speaking, when there is pain in the body, there is some form of Qi stagnation. Qi is an energy in your body that moves through a network of channels. Qi stagnation occurs when one or more of these channels are blocked. Through acupuncture, we can release these blocks. Think of a river with a small eddy in it. If you place a stick in the middle of the eddy, the water will disperse and flow evenly. This is the goal with acupuncture - to disperse your Qi so this energy can flow evenly throughout your body.