Adhesion: The Cause of Your Pain

Find yourself doing the same thing over and over again, either at work or in the gym? Have you ever been in an accident, or suffered a sports injury (sprain/strain) and still have pain? Sit at a desk for 8 hours a day and now suffer from chronic neck pain, upper back pain, or headaches? Tried physical therapy, chiropractic, massage therapy, and over-the-counter-medication with minimal results?

The cause of your pain right now…Adhesion! So what exactly is adhesion and what can you do about it?

Adhesion is, by medical definition, “a condition in which bodily tissues that are normally separate grow together.” The second definition is “a fibrous band of scar tissue that binds together normally separate structures.” Now the question is “How did I get adhesion (scar tissue)?”

Adhesion develops from 2 major causes; overuse and direct trauma.

Looking at the diagram above, we can classify (2) repetitive use and (3) sustained contraction as overuse. The tear is the direct trauma.

Adhesion forms in each situation as an innate response from the body to help stabilize the area. Sometimes the adhesion can be broken down by the body over time, but in most cases it fails to do so. As a result, the structure which contains the adhesion can sometimes be adhered to other local structures like muscles and nerves. When this happens the body can feel “tight,” or weak. Due to the adherence of surrounding structures, altered motion of the effected joint can occur, or, if it is adhered to a nerve, the nerve can be compromised and give you “tingling,” radiating pain, or numbness.

In the grand scheme of things, we are just starting to find out more about this condition and what to do about it. Most practitioners don’t know about this problem, let alone how to treat it. Stretching and foam rolling will not fix it, exercise will not fix it, and chiropractic adjustments will not fix adhesion either. So what can you do?

Finding a practitioner in your area with experience working on soft tissue is a good start. Massage therapists can help, but simply pressing on the adhesion for an extended time like a trigger point, is not going to fix it, either. In order to properly treat an adhesion, you must apply enough resistance against the adhesion, while lengthening the dysfunctional structure, that it begins to break down. Relatively few people have experience with this, but if you are lucky enough to have a highly skilled practitioner certified through a technique like Integrative Diagnosis in your area, they would be the first place to start.

If you live in the Cedar Rapids area and have tried everything to get out of pain, I invite you to give us a try. Call 319-423-0925 for an appointment today, or check us out atwww.thrivespineandsport.com for more information on how we can help! If you know someone that is currently struggling with pain, make sure to pass our information along.