PAIN - IT’S COMPLICATED...BUT THERE’S HOPE! by Krista Leake PT, DPT, ATC
Do you have pain all the time that never goes away?Has anyone ever explained to youwhy? Take a minute to learn more and read on. We have a pain problem in theUnited States. Surgical techniques have been advanced and are being used more frequently and more medications are manufactured and prescribed, and yet pain rates in theU.S. have
system produces more pain that is out of proportion to the tissue damage. In a simplification, pain is 100% produced by the brain assuming something is wrong. Sometimes the brain is right and sometimes it is wrong. We now know that the brain andnervous systemare the main contributors
more thandoubled in the past 15 years.Why is this?The traditionalmedical model about pain is old and outdated and we need to stop thinking about pain in terms of a single cause and single cure. In the medical profession our knowledge of how pain works has grown tremendously in the past 2 decades. We used to think that all pain came from the tissues in our body, but nowwe know that pain is muchmore complicated than that and pain is not always a reliable sign of what is really going on. The assumption that pain is solely generated fromour tissues has been around for over 350 years and is still often used today to explain why one hurts. This model is too simple and false. Tissues can and do result in pain and treatment helps tissues, but pain is farmore complex than just the tissues – especially chronic pain. Pain is not just a message from the brain about the tissues. Pain always is influenced by the brain and brain made. Often in chronic pain, the tissue is not the problem, the pain is the problem and the pain system has malfunctioned. We know you can have a tissue injury and no pain and have pain without tissue injury. Let’s start learning a little bit more by looking at some of the results of the latest scientific studies that support this concept. The most common cause of chronic pain is low back pain. If you take a group of middle age people who have never had back pain before and perform an MRI on all of them, 60% of those with no pain will have findings of a disc bulge or worse on an MRI. So, if 60% of people with NO PAIN have disc bulges or herniations then is a disc bulge or herniation the sole cause of pain in someone that has low back pain? What do other studies show? If you look at neck arthritis and degenerative changes, it has been found that among those with significant arthritic changes in their neck MRI’s and X-rays, only 10% have pain! In hockey players with no hip pain, 2 out of 3 had significant arthritis to their hips. In those with arthritis in their knee imaging, only 50% had pain. In people older than 30 years of age with rotator cuff tears, only 1 in 3 have pain and in those with no hip pain, 75% showed abnormal MRI’s. So clearly there is more to pain than just a tissue injury. So, let’s learn a little bit more about pain. Your nervous system is like an alarmsystem for the body. It is normally running at a low level all the time monitoring what is going on. After something triggers it, such as cutting your foot on glass, it sends a message to your brain and your brain tells you to act. You get off your foot, remove the glass, clean the wound, seek medical care as needed and eventually the pain goes away and your nervous systemgoes back down to normal and startsmonitoring your body again. But in some people that alarm system does not go back down to normal and now has become too sensitive and it is telling you that there is danger and you are experiencing pain when the tissues have healed up. The pain no longer is a helpful sensation. It is important to understand that chronic painwithout obvious tissue damage is amalfunction inwhich the nervous
to chronic pain in most people. This holds true for all pain, regardless of where it is in the body and what the diagnosis is and how long it has been going on. Even though the way your brain processes and controls pain is based on factors that are often completely out of your control or difficult to control, that does not mean you are completely powerless. There is always hope and recovery from most kinds of severe chronic pain is not only possible but common Pain is complicated and because of this, treating pain needs a large-scale comprehensive approach. Did you know that the more you learn about pain the less pain you will experience? Multiple research studies support this. MRI’s of peoples’ brains that suffer from chronic pain, showed a reduction in brain activity after learningmore about pain. Pain is a normal human experience. You need pain to alert you to danger and allow you to protect yourself. Living in pain, however, is not normal. Pain can be treated and people in pain can get back to a meaningful life, but it is not easy, it takes work and you need to get the right knowledge and support to take ownership and control of pain. Treatment requires multiple approaches and may include gaining more knowledge, aerobic exercise, relaxation techniques, breathing techniques, meditation, graded exposure to triggers, pacing, getting better sleep, hands on physical therapy, healthy diet, medications, and goal setting to just name a few. Now, do you believe that pain is complicated? There is not one approach that will cure chronic pain but there are several things that can be done to improve the symptoms and get you back to ameaningful and comfortable life. When people are in pain the last thing they want to do is move. Physical activity is just one approach to incorporate and is more than just exercise. Physical activity can helpwith pain and it can be almost anything that you like to do, provided you are working harder and moving a little more than you normally work. Getting your heart rate up just a little bit can help provide some pain relief. In others, gaining a little bit of strength can improve pain in the long term. Physical activity has been shown to decrease the sensitizing chemicals that are involved in some arthritis in addition to many other benefits. How do you start? Don’t go it alone!The physical therapists at Centra will use a combination of treatment methods to help best manage chronic pain and provide a comprehensive approach to improve your quality of life. Pain is less painful when you are confident and feel safe. Centra therapists are here to help.
rehab.centrahealth.com
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online