Every month, over 2.5 million patients stagger into Chiropractic and Medical Doctors’ offices in the U.S. alone with back pain, sciatica, numbness or shooting pains, and back arthritis. These patients will do virtually anything they can to alleviate their pain and symptoms because their entire lifestyle has changed – for the worst – with their back pain.

Pain Often Prevents Us from Thinking Straight

One of the most concerning things to see is that many back pain patients haven’t really thought much about the cause of their symptoms. They’re so preoccupied with pain that solutions such as aspirin, steroids and painkillers seem to be sufficient. But painkillers are not sufficient and I’ll explain why.

What Controls the Body?

The brain and nervous system control how the entire body works. All organs in the body only do what the brain tells them – and this makes the brain and nervous system the most important of all the different parts of the body.

The brain first makes sure it is functional, and then ensures the brainstem is working. The spinal cord and the nerves are next in priority.

When you have back pain, sciatica, numbness or shooting pains in the back or down the legs, these symptoms are telling you that the spinal cord and nervous system are sending out warning signs. There’s no harmony throughout the body, and the entire body is in chaos.

It’s important to understand that the symptoms our body gives us are ones we must pay a lot of attention to. Our body has its own natural healing ability programmed into it.  Even though you may not know specifically what is wrong with your back, you still get the innate response through those pain signals to perhaps not move too much, not bend over to pick up something, and not carry too many groceries.

So, where do these ideas come from?

Well, the way you were created involves an innate wisdom that controls and regulates, mends, adapts and heals.  Your innate intelligence can sense all that is going on within you and determine not only what your body needs, but also the hierarchy of what is most important for survival.

You see, these pain messages are generated from what is basically your own internal software program whose goal is always geared towards your survival – and living with a high quality of life.

Now let’s be clear, we always have the option to war against our internal software’s messages. For example, when we feel run down, we are getting the message, “Slow down, get a little extra rest, and then you’ll recover.” The body wants time to repair you. But by pushing ourselves harder at work, we eventually find that it’s a losing battle. We end up in bed soon enough – and for a longer period of time than if we had listened and gotten some sleep sooner.

For the back, we are warring against our body when we take painkillers. The internal software program gives us pain because it knows we will do something about the pain. Preferably what is done about the pain is FOR rather than against the body.

However, painkillers suppress the pain, and tell the body’s internal software, “No, I’m not listening to you. I’ll shut you up with this painkiller.”

When there are symptoms pointing to a damaged spine or nervous system, the rest of the body is immediately compromised and put into a red alert condition. All the other parts of the body depend on the proper functioning of the spine and nervous system. The spinal cord gives nerve impulses to nerve roots, which give impulses to peripheral nerves that travel to different parts of your body. Along the way, your organs are receiving impulses, too. Therefore if someone has a back injury, they may end up paralyzed, have loss of bowel and bladder function, or even be impaired sexually.

If the pain is covered up, then the actual problem is still there. This means that additional problems in the body and the internal organs are possible. The organs aren’t getting all the nerve impulses they need to function at a high level.

Proof That Painkillers Harm the Body

As far back as 2002 we knew that painkillers clearly interfere with healing of broken bones. In the study reported by the Associated Press, it goes as far as showing that animals given Vioxx or Celebrex after a broken leg showed lack of full recovery after 2 months. Their fracture was still very weak and had not remineralized, proving that the drugs interfered with the body’s internal software’s ability to fully heal that fracture.

Listen, the main thing to keep in mind when it comes to back pain, neck pain, or any symptom for that matter, is always to think and act with the future in mind.  In other words, health care doesn’t have a starting and stopping point, it’s ongoing.  Taking care of yourself should be a daily investment, one that will pay huge dividends down the road.

So think about this when you have back pain – and remember that your strongest ally in healing from back pain is your chiropractic treatment, which works directly on your body’s first priority – the brain and nervous system. …the healthier your nervous system is, the better your body will function, heal and express life from inside out.