Why You Should Never Ignore Everyday Aches and Pains

And welcome back to the Factor Uncensored. If you're like me, you probably do the same thing. If you feel a pain in your neck or in your back, you tend to take a Tylenol or aspirin and just pray for the best and hope that it goes away. But one doctor says you simply shouldn't ignore that pain. It could be a sign that something else is going on. Let's talk about it tonight. Joining us now here on The Factor Uncensored to talk about this problem affecting millions of Americans. I think, Dr. Ali, more than 60 million, 65 million Americans in some form or fashion suffer with some type of back pain. Not sure if that's chronic back pain, but that is a lot of people. And you're saying the pain that you feel could be sending you more than just a message of pain. There could be signs of other things that are going on. That's correct, Isaiah, yeah. Over 65 million Americans suffer from some sort of pain related issue, whether it's back pain, neck pain, joint pain. And out of those, 16 million of them have chronic pain. And chronic pain meaning that it has gone over three months timeframe and has lingered on. Isaiah, one of those things is pain is your body telling you that something is wrong, okay? And that needs to be taken seriously because that pain may be a result of something else that's happening that needs to be explored further, okay? Okay, so if someone comes to you, just give me a steroid shot or just give me a pain pill. You would say what to that? Puck the brakes right there, Isaiah. That's what I would say to them and say, listen, we need to figure out where this pain is coming from, why you're having this. It's your body's way of telling you something is wrong, and we need to correct it. It may be as simple as posture, or it may be as bad as cancer. So it's anywhere in between that, that we need to, as medical professionals, ask the right questions, get the right imaging, examine the patient, and determine which option or what do we think is really going on. And many of us are at a point in our lives where we can just deal with pain for those. And that's because there's a psychological reason, because we're afraid to go to the doctor and get that diagnosis. So what advice or what words, what wisdom, Dr. Ali, can you provide to those who can't get over that hump of going to the doctor in fear of being diagnosed with a life-ending illness like me? Isaiah, the best piece of advice I can give is if we can capture this early enough, if he can identify the source, the problem, we can treat it earlier. And downstream ratifications can be avoided, right? I.e. blood pressure, right? If you maintain high blood pressure for an extended period of time, there is a chance, a risk that you may develop a stroke, right? And so if we can treat it earlier and get your blood pressure in control, modify some of those risk factors, i.e. tobacco, weight loss, all of those things, we can prevent something. We can delay some of these things. Dr. Dhanush Ali, thank you for joining us in this valuable information on pain and how serious it can be even if you're able to endure it and live with it. It could be a sign of something more serious as serious cancer. Of course, you want to get that checked out with your doctor. Dr. Dhanush Ali, Archpoint Pain Institute. Thank you for joining us. And we'll be back with more factor on censored in just a moment.