Dooley Noted: 6/24/2016
I remember when I used to feel broken.
I went from from therapist to therapist, begging for answers to why I was in pain.
I wanted to be fixed.
When each practitioner failed to make big changes for me, I blamed them – and myself- for not healing well.
I was baffled at the absence of structural findings on imaging.
Back then, I thought symptoms only matched up to pathologies.
But I learned the truth.
I learned that your blood work and imaging can be near perfect, and you can still feel 10 out 10 on the pain scale.
You can ache and hurt without there ever being a serious issue.
I learned this from my father.
He has experienced two of the most serious diagnoses known to man: a myocardial infarction and inoperable lung cancer.
With both diagnoses, he barely had symptoms.
His heart disease grew inside of him year after year, until it occluded 100% of one of his coronary arteries.
His heart’s left ventricle had to nearly die before he experienced any kind of symptoms.
With his cancer, it grew for years and years in complete silence.
Only until the fist sized tumor choked his esophagus, trachea, and aorta to the point of him vomiting did he actually find out he had cancer.
His complaint for the past 10 years has not been chest pain nor problem is linked to cancer.
He has complaint of chronic knee pain, due to an old football injury.
Symptoms do not equate to diagnostic severity.
You can have big symptoms without a big diagnosis.
In fact, your anxiety about the symptoms can make the symptoms feel worse.
Bursitis can feel more painful than a serious injury.
Chronic low back pain can be more painful than a disease that may hide from you for years.
By all means, get assessed and corrected.
Get answers for your pain.
But don’t assume all pain is a serious diagnosis or an explanation for structural findings on films.
You’re not broken parts to be fixed.
But seek to move well in the parts you’ve been gifted, hopefully in a pain-free place.
As always, it’s your call.
– Dr. Kathy Dooley
