An Excerpt From
The Stress Effect: Discover the Connection Between Stress and Disease
and Reclaim Your Health
Land of The Adrenals
My journey into the ‘land of the adrenals’ began in my first year of practice with a twenty-eight year old male patient with multiple joint complaints. It seemed like just about everything hurt: his neck, his lower back, his knees, his elbows, and even his ankles. He was certainly able to function but the pain was not enhancing the quality of his life.
After taking a complete history and performing a thorough examination, I initiated a treatment program that consisted of adjusting the problem joints along with cold compresses and corrective exercises to be done at home. He responded very well and the intensity and frequency of his pain progressively diminished to the point where after one month of care he was stable and about to be released from further treatment.
Then one day he came to my office for what I thought would be his last follow-up visit and nearly all of his symptoms had returned. There was no new injury or accident to account for his pain and I tried various avenues of questioning in an effort to determine what had caused this sudden exacerbation of his symptoms. We went through everything from whether he had been lifting, gardening, house cleaning, did he wake up with pain from sleeping in a poor position, and on and on with absolutely no clue as to what could be the causative factor.
At a loss for any reasonable explanation for a structural cause of his pain, I took a shot at the psychological component and asked if he was under any new or unusual stress. It didn’t take but a few seconds before he launched into a diatribe about how his little Jewish momma from Miami had been visiting for the past two weeks and she was driving him crazy. Oy vey!
With no disrespect for my own mother, let’s just say I had an inkling and considerable empathy for the stress he was experiencing. It gave me my first graphic clinical insight into how dramatic an effect stress can have on structural alignment and pain. It taught me from then on to always consider a patient’s stress profile in both determining the cause and treatment of their problems. With regard to this young man, I gave him vitamin supplements to nutritionally support his adrenal glands and within a few weeks he was fine again.
Reprinted by arrangement with Avery, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., from The Stress Effect by Richard Weinstein, D.C. Copyright © 2004 by Richard Weinstein.