(Knee Pain Continued)

your body’s alarm clock. If you shut off the alarm without first getting out of bed, you run the risk of greater consequences later. If you are one of these people please stop and think about this for a minute.

When I evaluate someone I will look at their entire body and see if one part of their body is compensating for another part that is misaligned. Believe it or not knee injuries are usually a good indicator that something is going on somewhere else in your body. You see, there really was something to that song that says, “The foot bones connected to the leg bone.” It’s not uncommon for knee pain clients to come in with a diagnosis from their doctor or chiropractor that says something like, “the patient has iliotibial band syndrome (ITBS)”, which is a thigh injury or “the patient has pronated feet.” Chiropractors often say, “One leg is longer than the other.” The truth is that these are all good diagnoses. But a diagnosis will not fix the problem.

Usually when I ask about what’s being done to fix the knee, I hear answers like “I am stretching my IT band”; “my chiropractor adjusts me so my leg lengths equal out”; or “my podiatrist gave me orthotics”. All of these solutions can sometimes be good ones except for the fact that our bodies work in systems not individual parts. Working on these isolated parts just leaves other questions unanswered. Although you stretch your IT band you still have to figure out why the IT band is tighter in the first place. If one foot is pronated, why isn’t the other? Will the orthotic fix the whole problem? And, why is your chiropractor able to fix your leg length disparity on one visit only to have it off again at your next appointment?