Have you ever wondered why you have pain? Pain is an unpleasant sensory or emotional experience. Its purpose is to make you aware of threat or danger causing you to stop or change your behaviour. All pain is very real.
Often people think that pain means damage. Do you think that if you feel pain in your back you have damaged it in some way? Do you worry that the more pain you feel, the worse the damage is? In fact, signals come from your back along nerves that detect changes in temperature, chemical balance or pressure. The brain then interprets that information along with lots of other stored information to determine whether you feel pain, and how much. It’s true to say all pain comes from the brain.
Why you have pain…
You might imagine it would be good to never have pain. Congenital analgesia is a rare condition where you don’t experience pain. It’s an awful condition to have – dangerous even. Babies will chew their tongues when teething. There is no feeling of a broken bone, cuts, hot or cold, there is no detection of danger and injury is only recognised when it is seen. Pain is actually a really important sensation to have.
You may have pain because of a new injury. Your brain will tell you through pain to protect that area from further damage. You may have had pain for many months or years. Long-term pain is very common in society today. It doesn’t mean that your body is broken or damaged or will never work again. It is a sign of sensitivity around an area, your body is protecting the area from danger. Any tissue damage will have healed by 3 -6 months. There are many body systems that influence how we feel pain and these are all part of the puzzle of improving pain.
Think of an overprotective parent. Maybe as a child you had an accident climbing a tree. Afterwards when you climb a tree your parents would be saying ‘be careful’, ‘don’t climb too high’, ‘come down now’. This is similar to how your brain becomes over sensitive to an area that has been injured. It keeps generating pain signals to protect an area – ‘be careful’ ‘should you be doing that?’.
Don’t tolerate long term pain
Persistent pain is really unpleasant and can dominate your life. The team at Shefford Osteopathic Clinic is here to understand your pain. Our priority is to identify the factors that may be contributing to your pain. We will help you to understand any scan results or diagnosis you have. Then, we work with you to form a plan of how to return to the activities you enjoy and reduce the things you are avoiding because of your pain. We’ll help you to stop being ruled by your pain and return to enjoying and living life.
There are a lot of myths and misunderstandings of pain and medical diagnosis. Medical understanding of pain has developed enormously in recent years and it has been important to keep up to date with the latest evidence. Don’t put up with your pain any longer, come and talk to us and see how we may be able to help you. Our team has a particular interest in treating persistent pain and has helped many patients with years of pain return to work, exercise and enjoying life to the full.