Discussing What vs Why With Injuries

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Differentiating between what the injury is (diagnosis) and why it occurred (cause) is an important step in achieving long term resolution.  Most of the time people simply want to know what the diagnosis is, being able to put a name to the pain they are experiencing can be somewhat comforting. Knowing what it is that is causing the pain, allows one to develop a plan of action on how to make the pain go away. For example, if someone has tendinitis, they would want to decrease the inflammation in the area to help diminish the pain. This is all good and an important part of the process, but if you don’t dig deeper to determine the WHY, the cause of the pain, more often than not that pain will return.  At Team Elite Chiropractic, we do a thorough evaluation to not only determine what is causing your pain, but also to determine why it occurred in the first place. 

An example of this would be the diagnosis of shoulder impingement syndrome.  Shoulder Impingement Syndrome is a recognized and billable diagnosis code under the International Classification of Diseases, but what does it even mean?  Usually this code is used for someone who is having pain in their shoulder, more specifically if a structure is being “pinched” in the subacromial space (the space between the shoulder blade and humerus). If the clinician just stops at the WHAT, they will treat the localized pain to the area and treat the inflammation in that space. This can provide some temporary relief, but the pain is almost certain to return if that is all that is done. You need to dig deeper to understand why this impingement is happening in the first place.  Is it from tightness in the shoulder capsule causing decentration of the joint? Is it from lack of stability of the shoulder joint and surrounding musculature causing compensatory stabilization strategies? Is it because you were born with bone structure that decreases the space in the joint?  These are only a few possibilities of many that could be causing an impingement syndrome in the shoulder joint.  And, as you could imagine, all of these possibilities would require a different treatment plan. Of course, there will be some overlap in the treatment of all three of these, but being able to tailor the treatment to the exact cause will have drastically greater results. 

If you have suffered from stubborn, nagging injuries, please feel comfortable in reaching out to us so we can help you achieve the best results possible. We will not only treat the what, but develop an actionable plan to address the why this is occurring to begin with. 

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