When the Compensation Breaks

On a daily basis, I see injuries that are not primary but secondary to a chronic condition.The body compensates for an injury and the pain goes away in the injured location - notice I did not day it is resolved or healed. It simply goes away because you are compensating for that injury by putting more stress on other parts of your body. Eventually the compensation breaks and now there is a much larger problem.A classic example of this is with the low back. A patient might say: “I have had low back pain on the left side on and off for years, now it has moved to the right and is shooting down my leg.” What typically happens is to compensate for the pain on the left, the patient might walk with a different gait, putting more pressure on the right leg, etc. However, the compensation eventually fails causing a much worse problem and often leading to a surgical short-term fix. This often results in a long-term poor outcome.Another common form of compensation failure is hip pain resulting in opposite side knee failure. For example, the left hip has pain, which leads to the person putting the right side of the body under increased stress, leading to a break down on the right side.As I said, I see this on a daily basis. It is much easier to address the original problem/pain than it is to wait until the compensation breaks!