After that last downer of a blog post, I thought I'd add one with a lighter tone (but still serious topic). Here's a condition that I might have never heard about if I hadn't had a certain level of trust and rapport with the patients who were experiencing it. Since it's something that causes no pain but can seem "crazy" or embarrassing to ask about out loud, I wonder how many people are worrying about it in silence or frantically typing in Google searches with no useful results. I call it "The Case of the Vibrating Package."
About a year ago, a patient who'd been coming in for a little while expressed a concern about something that he almost didn't even mention. There was a strange vibrating sensation - literally like a cell phone buzzing - that was happening intermittently in a sensitive part of his anatomy. "Do you think it could be an STD?? What the hell is it???" Understandably, he was freaked out. I didn't do any special medical exam at that point -- to his relief -- but just the standard chiropractic things. Checked for nerve interference at the logical spinal levels. Sure enough, there was a subluxation with an emotional component. We did NET, and the vibrating disappeared. End of story!
Until recently, yet another patient sheepishly mentioned having almost the same thing. "I thought my cell phone was vibrating in my pocket, but I looked and it wasn't even in there! What the hell is happening to me?!" Again, turned out to be a very simple case of subluxation -- basically, a little nerve interference that could be relieved with the proper adjustment.
So what does this story have to do with the rest of us, almost none of whom are likely to experiencing this "vibrating package syndrome" ? It illustrates the point that you can have a "pinched nerve" or nerve interference with NO PAIN. Pain is only ONE of the sensations that nerves can transmit. They are also responsible for letting your brain know about things such as : VIBRATION, heat, cold, tickle, pressure, etc. So in these people, it was clearly the vibration-information nerves that were being interfered with somehow.
I doubt this condition will ever warrant a big medical study, and I doubt there will ever be any big pharmaceutical TV commercials showcasing a drug to stop it. But it's just another example of how chiropractic can make your life a whole lot less stressful... in the most unexpected of ways.
Happy MLK Jr. Day, Happy Inauguration Day, Happy happy...
-DK