Why is Chronic Pain So Difficult To Solve?
Our Experience With Pain
We’ve spent many years helping clients with recurring and chronic pain. In the early years when we provided only the Thai Sport Massage, many used this therapy for relief. It often helped! But the fix is often only temporary.
We added many new therapies since then and our Neuromuscular Therapy became the go to solution for pain relief. This therapy is not only focused on the site of pain, but the practitioners have specialized training to release nerve entrapment and provide myofascial release. It’s been very popular for pain relief, especially for acute or recent pain caused by a temporary problem. Chronic pain or pain that has persisted for 30 days or more is more complicated. In 2020 we added Chiropractic services and corrective exercises to our business.
After one year of offering chiropractic services and a corrective exercise therapy called DNS, we learned that traditional chirpractic like massage therapy may relieve pain, but it doesnt usually resolve pain! Howeer, DNS, or Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization did wonders for some chronic pain sufferes.
In 2022, we took a new direction that we believe is the answer to solving most acute and chronic pain, when it comes to musculoskeletal issues. After years of
We’ve tried several approaches to deliver long lasting solutions over the years. We tried chiropractic sercices, Some of the most troubling issues include tennis and golf elbow, tendinitis, shin splints, groin pain, runner’s knee, and even carpal tunnel syndrome. Common sites include ankles, knees, hips, and shoulders.
There are three reasons why chronic pain is difficult to treat:
Overuse and Re-Injury of Muscles and Joints
Poor Movement or Exercise Dysfunction
Core Stabilization Problems
Overuse and physical injuries are easy to diagnose and resolve because the treatment area is always at or near the “ouch zone” or the site of pain. It’s also usually where most medical and wellness professionals spend most of their time, which makes perfect sense because that problem must be fixed. But what happens when the site of pain has nothing to do with the root cause? It will never fully go away or will return over and over again!
The average person usually gets treated by local massage therapists, chiropractors, or physical therapists and some even reach for surgery. For example runners’ knee or Patellofemoral Pain has been referred to as “the black hole” of orthopedics and surgery and even rehabilitation to correct patella alignment is often unsuccessful. More often than not, it’s weakness and dysfunction of the hip muscles, specifically the abductors and external rotators that’s a leading cause of biomechanical faults at the knee and subsequent patellofemoral pain.
So while most therapies focus on 1. The Actual Injury Site it is usually 2. Poor Movement and/or 3. Core Stabilization is the source of most of our chronic problems. It is for this very reason why Thai Sport has developed an advanced yet affordable solution, The Thai Sport Tuneup, that can properly diagnose and then design a treatment plan that addresses all three issues.
A Thai Sport Tuneup is an in-depth session that lasts 60-75 minutes with a qualified expert, Dr., Shane Kelly, with years of experience in identifying and treating both sites of pain and sources of pain. .
not just the site of pain but also the root cause of it. For example, Tennis players and golfers experience painful elbow injuries that get treated over and over again for years!
it requires much more than a massage therapist or bodywork expert to be able to medically diagnose the real root cause.
That somewhere can be very hard to locate and treat if it’s a movement dysfunction or worse a hidden problem deep within our core stabilization systems. It has taken years of sports medicine research to develop the understanding and the treatment plans that are able to resolve these more complex problems. after years of research and searching for answers, we always came back to the leading sports medicine institutes and the thought leaders in such things as developmental kinesiology as the new tools to discover and treat these hidden dysfunctions. The problem though is that most of these specialize are only available at exorbitant prices or only accessible to Olympic and professional sports organizations.
an be fixed, it could come back again if the root cause happends to be a Mobiity or Stabilization problem! This is where sports medicine comes in to play.
In fact, most professionals simpy tend to always focus on the site of pain, and then when resolved, you are cured and see you later. if you go to most It seems that most wellness industries love to focus on the site of pain because overuse and direct injury is going to directly affect that area. as the main diagnosis because it’s easy to identify and easy to provide relief. Overuse means a certain muscle or joint hurts and ANd for us, most of our clients that have an overuse issue (either temporary or habitually), we can help them manage it.
But the probel is that almost all physical therapy, chiropractic, and ther allied heathlcare loves to focus on the site of pain. That’s why millions see their chriproactor every week for example to “crack their back”. Or why massage therapy is such a powerful way to elimiate pain and stress. Becasue the root of many problems are not at the site of pain! There is a common misdiagnosos even by Physical therapists and Pyhscians taht if they always treat the site of pain, the problem wil lgo away. That;s not true in 50% of the time.
to help resolve pain and injury. But recently, we’ve gone even further with a new generation of sports medicine therapies provided by Dr. Shane Kelly. Dr. Kelly, our newest team member, is a sports chiropractor and a certified DNS Trainer who specializes in athletic rehab and performance. His mission at Thai Sport is the long term resolution of recurring pain and injury as well as optimizing sports performance.
Dr. Kelly brings us the ability to diagnose injury and pain-related dysfunctions and develop treatment plans based on our entire repertoire of services. Besides being an expert in spinal, joint, and soft tissue therapies, he is a certified trainer in DNS or Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization. This is a revolutionary treatment and self-care corrective exercise program that’s designed to improve core stability or “the deep core”. DNS was developed in Prague by a world-renown physiotherapist and today is practiced in nearly every major league sports facility and sports medicine clinic.
It is also a core treatment for our vision of building better bodies!
What Is Dynamic neuromuscular stabilization?
DNS addresses the regional interdependence and the inter-linking of the skeleton, joints, and musculature during movement. DNS encompasses inborn motor patterns or programs that enable the infant to develop an ideal posture, functional joint centration, optimal breathing, and locomotion movements throughout ontogenesis. In the DNS approach, the main goal is to restore these same physiological movement patterns as defined by developmental kinesiology.
Optimal quality of trunk stabilization is a basic prerequisite for the ideal quality of any movement including sports activities.
It’s our nervous system that establishes control of posture, movement, and gait. As we age these degrade from our “original programming” due to bad habits, incorrect exercise, disease, or injury (for example). Because our body operates as a whole, any complex movement requires both local and global coordination of various muscle groups. When stability, mobility, and/or balance of these muscle groups become compromised, the ability to efficiently transfer force through the trunk to the extremities is adversely affected.
We don’t even know we’re doing it! Stabilizing our body is automatic: prior to a movement, our short intersegmental spinal muscles, deep neck flexors, diaphragm, abdominal wall, and pelvic floor prepare to stabilize the body (this is called our Integrated Stabilizing System).
So what happens when we aren’t properly stabilized? If one muscle (even just part of it) is dysfunctional, the whole stabilizing function gets out-of-whack and then the movement is compromised. This activates the wrong muscles and forces joints to compensate. The end result is a domino effect causing pain, injury, and reduced athletic performance!
So why should DNS therapy matter to you? It matters because every mobility issue, tight muscle, or stuck joint, stems from an underlying stability issue! While our therapists are experts at resolving your immediate pain and injury. We really want to do more than be your bandaid company. Our goal is to be your guide in becoming your best and that means resolving your problems and improving your ability to move, compete, and live.
Finding the cause of Pain is The Key
There is a nagging problem in the world of therapeutic massage and physical therapy — we are trained to resolve pain and injury by focusing on the site of pain. For example, if one, has golf elbow, it’s common for the therapist to focus on the elbow. The goal is to remove the pain so the golfer can return to pain-free status. But too often this is just a temporary solution because the root problem still exists.
That’s because the cause of the pain is not in the elbow. The pain site (elbow) is only the source of pain but the cause of the pain really needs to be investigated. So while our amazing therapists can resolve the pain, the bigger goal is to explore, analyze, and eliminate the root cause of the pain. In this case, the cause is likely the movement of the golf swing and narrowing down where the faulty pattern is occurring. It’s not always about changing your golf swing either, but having the proper muscle synergy and activation.
This ability to moving our extremities in correct anatomical alignment requires having stable intra-abdominal pressure across the trunk. Otherwise, our joints related to the movement is physiologically difficult to control. There is also another component that is often overlooked as a driving cause for dysfunction as well. That is neural tension or compression at some point in the nervous system. This could occur in the neck or cervical spine, the shoulder, the upper arm, or the elbow or forearm itself.
DNS treatments and correctives are fundamental to retraining your brain to autonomously correct these problems so you are moving your best. To get started though requires adequate diagnostics and testing!
DNS IN ACTION! THE THAI SPORT TUNEUP
There are numerous DNS treatment protocols starting with something as simple as a corrective breathing technique that activates the diaphragm to stabilize the body. Thus in order to prescribe a treatment protocol, it’s critical for the first session with Dr. Kelly to not only identify the source of pain or injury but also to begin to discover the root cause of them!
We call this initial session the Thai Sport TuneUp and is a hands-on 75-minute session with Dr. Kelly. Like your car, the role of a Thai Sport Tuneup is to diagnose and then develop a treatment or repair plan. This is not your typical session with a chiropractor or physical therapist! It’s a combination of movement and often, balance and postural analysis combined with in-depth manual investigation. Performed in a special room called the Training Lab, it operates like a miniature gym complete with exercise equipment.
The Kinetisense AI System
We use a specialized technology from Kinetisense that’s popular with Olympic training centers and major league sports teams to help track and identify movement dysfunction and injury called Kinetisense. This is an AI motion analysis system that is an important aid to you and the doctor to help identify root problems and then track progress. It is especially important for the doctor to analyze and show movement dysfunction in rapid and complex movements.
Hands-On Evaluation
This 75-minute session is usually just the beginning of a pathway to long term resolution of chronic pain or injury. It is also designed to help athletes who have hit a wall in their sport and seek to increase their ability to move better. After the initial session, you and your doctor will have a starting point towards recovery that will almost always include DNS treatments and a DNS corrective exercise prescription that you will receive by email or app. It may also provide you a guideline of further manual therapy including chiropractic and other bodywork.
Treatment PlanS
Usually, manual therapy is needed to continue on your journey towards resolution. In most cases the first step is to focus on getting out of pain, thus it’s often a rehabilitative approach. This usually requires a concentration of sessions first before evolving into periodic maintenance sessions.
Treatments are available in either 15 or 30-minute segments depending upon the requirements. The 15-minute segments are purely chiropractic and can be treated rapidly while the 30-minute sessions are more comprehensive, typically focusing on DNS training, corrective exercises, and other bodywork. The doctor may also recommend other massage or neuromuscular bodywork with our therapy team.
The patient will always be provided with a prescription of exercises using a single easy to use exercise system from Rehab Guru. Within this comprehensive system is our own DNS videos as well as thousands of other corrective exercises. Often our
DNS training is a therapeutic system where exercises become more challenging over time. Eventually, these movements are ingrained into the central nervous system becoming a fundamental part of everyday life.
After the pain is resolved through DNS and manual therapies, we can then focus on improving our movement and performance. Most of our clients are actively involved in one or more sports and fitness activities. Clearly, most of us can improve in these areas and proper balance, movement, coordination, as well as strength are critical.
Welcome to the new world at Thai Sport Bodyworks!