Pain

Pain. 

Even the word evokes a sensory reaction.

The good news is that understanding how pain works is at the vanguard of pain treatment.

Pain researchers are now using a new approach to treating chronic pain patients… teaching them about pain. 

There’s a difference between acute and chronic pain. Acute pain is the result of an injury or surgery and is connected to tissue damage that heals within three to six months. Chronic pain sufferers are besieged by pain that defies traditional treatments and it comes and goes like the Nova Scotia weather.

Acute pain has a purpose..it is telling you something is wrong and that you should avoid whatever is provoking the pain. This is your body’s alarm system working as nature intended.

However, chronic pain is when the pain alarm  is dysfunctional, according to writer Steve Haines in his book “Pain Is Really Strange.”

“Chronic pain has no discernible purpose,” he says. “It is like a very bad habit.”

“Pain is your brain telling you something is dangerous.”

Over and over.

Pain is a bully that blunts out good feelings, fond memories, and being able to live a purposeful life.

Understanding it helps.

Pain is an event in your brain called a “neurotag”. Each neurotag, is a large constellation of connected thoughts, memories, sensations, and experiences. It’s like a giant woven knot in your brain and when one of the tendrils of that knot gets tugged the whole of the neurotag gets triggered, resulting in pain.

So you may have a vacation from your chronic pain and all of a sudden your mother calls and laces you with some kind of judgemental behavior and you notice a few hours later that your pain is back.

You are pain-free, and you go away on vacation. Your pain stays at home but as soon as you come back to your job your pain comes back.

You are pain-free until you start exercising and then you are right back at pain zero.

Both physical and emotional and cultural aspects can be part of the neurotag. The longer you are in pain, the larger the neurotag gets and the more things trigger it.

Research also shows that pain is not necessarily correlated to arthritic findings on X-rays or MRIs. There are just as many people running around with osteoarthritis, bone spurs, and other issues that do not present any pain.

Read that one again.

I highly recommend you buy Haine’s book and educate yourself about pain.

In my work, teaching people about their bodies and more specifically how to gain control of their movement, I deal with the body’s tissues in movement and in helping them deal with their stress reflex.

Some have had a boatload experience of pain, which has come and gone, despite medical intervention, stretching, or massage. Most come to me with a list of injuries, surgeries, and opinions on their bodies that they neither understand what it is or what to do about it. 

First of all, I am not a medical professional, I am a movement educator.

I help people learn to have trust in their bodies and help them learn to move pain-free, get stronger and reclaim their confidence in themselves.

My approach to pain is to help the person feel safe in their body by learning to orient to the space around them when they exercise. This creates a sense of safety which is essential to create in working with chronic pain. 

I help them learn to sense their bodies. Often the pain is the only sensation they have learned to notice and becoming aware of other sensations is a way of weaning off the pain habit.

Learning to activate the deep muscles of support..the pelvic floor and abdominal and spinal muscles give each and every one of us more control over our movement thereby giving agency to be able to decide what exercise is appropriate and what is not.

After mastering some simple foundational movements I guide my clients into full-body movements that connect legs and arms to the torso. I encourage them to always feel the support inside the body and the sense of expansion that comes from a stable center.

We move on to strengthening exercises with weights and bands, lengthening and strengthening the body’s myofascia which is one of the main organs of perception and sensation in the body.

The ability to say “that is not for me”, “that is enough” or “no, I don’t want to do that”, is important to give each and every client agency over their own bodies.

It’s not a quick fix. These patterns take time to unravel and new habits and behaviours to form. Research shows our brains are neuroplastic and can change at any age.

I tell my clients it’s a practice and a process of giving themselves the care and attention they deserve. I don’t get rid of their pain. I teach them the skills to do it for themselves.

Check out all my courses at my online studio, and find one that will work for you.