Pain
Pain is your body’s way of warning you that something is wrong. It’s an unpleasant sensation that can range from mild, localised discomfort to agony. Pain has physical and emotional / psychological components. Pain can feel sharp or dull. It may throb or burn. Pain may be contained to a discrete area, as in an injury and after surgery, or it can be more diffuse like arthritis or like when your muscles ache from intense exercise or the flu.
Pain may last for a short time or a long time. It may come and go or it may be constant. Some pain may be so mild that you can ignore it until it goes away. But other pain may be so bad that you can’t do your daily activities without medicine or other treatment.
Pain can bring about other physical symptoms, like nausea, dizziness, weakness or drowsiness. It can cause emotional effects like anger, depression, mood swings or irritability. Perhaps most significantly, it can change your lifestyle and impact your job, relationships and independence.
Pain that starts quickly and lasts for a short time is called acute pain. Examples include pain from an injury, a headache, childbirth, or right after surgery.
Pain that goes on for months or years is called chronic pain. You may have this pain from an injury that doesn’t heal or from a health problem like low back pain or very bad headaches.
Numbness
Numbness is a loss of the sensation of feeling in an area of the body. Numbness results from damage to, or impaired function of, the nerves that supply the affected area. The function of the nerves may be impaired by numerous causes including some chronic diseases, trauma, toxins, electrolyte imbalances, and pressure on the spinal nerves from herniated discs or other diseases of the spine.
Numbness and tingling are abnormal sensations that can occur anywhere in your body, but are often felt in your fingers, hands, feet, arms, or legs.
Treatments for Pain and Numbness
Pain and Numbness are cardinal signs and symptoms that there is dysfunction occurring within the body. Only the person who is experiencing the pain can describe it properly. Pain is a very individual experience.
At Spinal and Sports Care, our practitioners utilise experience, expertise and evidence based practice to assess the cause of the patient’s pain and in combination with worldwide accepted outcome measures to quantify objectively the pain.
Our philosophy is that pain is a symptom of an underlying disorder, and if treated effectively, will also get rid of the pain, or at least reduce it.
If the source of your pain can’t be treated, or isn’t known, our experience tells us that often the best way to treat the pain is to co-manage the condition with your G.P. and pain medicine specialists who can offer options for pain control.