PAIN IS A WARNING Due to years of exposure to mass-marketing techniques of advertisers and other health care providers, people have come to believe that if they are not in pain then they are healthy. Pop this pill, or swallow this formula, and the pain will go away. This line of reasoning can be very costly indeed, even fatal. It is like seeing the oil pressure warning light come on in your car and simply disconnecting the light instead of checking the oil. Pain means there is a problem. To cover it up with drugs is misleading and dangerous because that pain needs to be checked out and the problem corrected. And, it follows that a doctor's responsibility is not to relieve pain at all costs, but rather to understand why the pain exists and to analyze and treat the cause of that pain. Pain can be defined as a sensation in which a person experiences discomfort, distress or suffering. The degree of pain can actually be measured with an apparatus called a dolorimeter, in units called "dols." Childbirth for example, averages 10.5 dols while a toothache averages 2 dols. Although the degree of pain a person experiences can be scientifically monitored and measured, this still does not explain exactly what pain is. Pain is a warning. It is a signal of malfunction of some vital body circuitry; a message that something is wrong. And even though the presence of pain means that something is wrong, we cannot say the opposite, that the absence of pain means that we are necessarily healthy. A person may have no symptoms at all yet be suffering from the first stages of a life threatening disease. Pain is usually the last thing to occur in an unhealthy condition and the first thing to go away when the causes start being corrected. A more graphic way of understanding the seriousness of pain is by considering the analogy of an iceberg. The tip of the iceberg, visible above the water, can be related to the symptoms (pain) a patient feels. It is the most easily seen and understandable part of the iceberg. But two thirds of the iceberg is hidden underwater, and this is the part that is serious and poses the biggest threat. The underwater portion of the iceberg is like the cause of the symptoms (pain). There is much more to an iceberg than what meets the eye. You cannot expect to relieve symptoms (the tip of the iceberg) permanently unless you first correct the cause (the underwater portion). When people ask the question, "Why should I come in for a chiropractic adjustment when I am not in pain?" it is like asking "Why should I exercise if I am not in pain?" or "Why should I eat right if I am not in pain?" Health-minded people do not base their dietary or exercise habits on pain. They maintain those habits because they know they play an essential role in their health, vitality and longevity. Chiropractic helps restore and maintain normal nerve flow to every cell, tissue and organ of the body. Optimum health is the result of providing your body with proper essential ingredients such as food, water, sleep, clean air, proper nutrition and a properly functioning nervous system. Periodic adjustments, even when you are not in pain, are essential for a properly functioning nervous system and the restoration and maintenance of optimum health. Being out of pain does not signal the end of treatment, it is simply the first hurdle to climb over on the road to optimum health.