Chronic Pain

What is chronic pain?

Firstly, there are all sorts of different symptoms of chronic pain. The common theme with them all is that it is persistent. Whether it’s that dull ache that keeps popping up when you are stressed. Or the sharp excruciating pain when you move in a certain way. If it keeps coming back or is with you constantly on a daily basis for 6 months or more, it’s chronic!

Different types of pain

Secondly, when you mention chronic pain to most people they assume you mean muscloskeletal pain and of course this is often where the pain resides but there are so many different types of pain:

Nociceptive Pain: Usually the outcome of a soft tissue injury

Inflammatory Pain: Protective response by the immune system

Neuropathic Pain: Irritation of the nerves

Functional Pain: Pain without a recognisable source

However, many conditions are also accompanied with pain; Migraines, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), Multiple Scelorsis (MS), Arthritis, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), Fibromyalgia, Cancer and many more. Many psychological conditions result in chronic pain, perhaps you don’t even relate the two. Stress, mental health and emotional processes can often increase chronic pain but we rarely make the connection between them.

Managing Chronic Pain

So there are many ways to help maintain chronic pain. Using hot and cold temperatures, exercise, physical therapy, ultrasound or laser therapy, pain relieving devices like splints, braces, shoe orthotics etc, topical pain relievers, over the counter medications, herbal or nutritional pain relievers, prescription drugs. And these are all common ways used for managing pain. However, do we really want to just manage it? Wouldn’t it be better to ease it and take back control of your life rather than letting your pain control you?

What factors affect pain

For instance, people often presume pain is only what is happening at soft tissue level. But it’s so much more. There are various systems throughout the body. They send signals back and forth that play a part in pain. Belief systems, our reasoning, past experiences, emotional processes and the external environment that surrounds us all affect the way experience pain.

For years we have assumed musculoskeletal pain is about tissue damage. This view is somewhat outdated now! It’s important to know that pain is, more often than not, about protection rather than tissue damage. People’s thoughts and beliefs contribute to the nervous system being vigilantly overprotective. But by considering what the significant factors are that influence our pain we can change our perception and experience of it.

For example, when our state of mind perceives our pain in a negative way, like wanting rid of it or labeling it as something that limits what you can do, there is a disconnection between mind and body. Moreover, your body is communicating in an attempt to express it’s needs and your mind isn’t listening.

When we have experienced trauma our mind is trained to look for any way to avoid feeling this pain again. It does this by building internal and external barriers around that feeling. Reaching for negative thoughts more than positive activates the stress reponse in the body and when this becomes the norm in everyday life, the stress response doesn’t know how to switch off. By consciously changing this pattern we can help ourselves to feel better.

To help you understand click here to watch a video from the pain specialist Lorimer Moseley explaining pain in a simple way.

How Wellcentred can help?

Working with Craniosacral Therapy and Somatic Experiencing is a wonderful way to connect mind to body. It helps guide us to resource and what health feels like on a subtle level. By gently slowing the body down, exploring calm and activation within the nervous system at a level we can handle without overwhelm, we can discharge unwanted stress. After that, the body starts to settle and relax and we can experience a reduction of chronic pain. In addition, by incorporating nurturing practices and habits into our daily lifestyle like mindfulness, meditation, breathing exercises, yoga, tai chi and qigong the symptoms can lessen dramatically over time.