When Advil is Dumb
“Pain says you can’t. Advil says you can”
This quote is from an Advil commercial that popped up on my feed today.
One of their other messages is “pain will get you soon enough”.
It’s clever marketing. Saying that pain is going to get you eventually, might as well buy some Advil.
It’s also a band-aid. A temporary solution. Nothing that will address the underlying issues that would lead people to have problems doing the things represented in their commercials.
Activities like lifting a tire, walking to work, picking up your mail, playing with your kids at the park, building furniture or opening your oven.
There are issues there that Advil will not permanently solve. Sure maybe it helps short-term. But it’s not a solution.
What could be the solution?
Maybe the person is doing too much too soon and needs to address the workload.
Maybe they are stressed and have too much on their plate or are unable to effectively respond to stress.
Maybe the person has some range of motion limitations that are affecting their daily activities.
Solutions require a process, not a short-term pill.
Solutions require assessing where someone is currently at, to find the most appropriate path towards results.
