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NEWSLETTER The Newsletter About Your Health And Caring For Your Body
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WHAT YOUR PAIN IS TRYING TO TELL YOU
When you haven’t injured yourself but something starts to hurt, do you ever wonder what your body is trying to tell you? It’s hard to assess pain in isolation but let’s break down some different types of pain so you can start to think of pain as your body’s way of trying to tell you something. 1. Throbbing/Aching Pain vs. Shooting/ Burning Pain Pain from tissues like bones, muscles, ligaments, and tendons tends to feel like a throb or an ache or even sharp. Pain that feels like it shoots down a limb (like sciatica) or burns or even tingles tends to be due to nerve irritation. Whenever you think nerve irritation, think spine. While a nerve can become irritated anywhere along its path (like in carpal tunnel syndrome), more than likely there’s an issue at the spine where the nerve exits the spinal cord. And remember, when you start thinking spine, your next thought should be posture. Pro Tip: For both types of pain, see if you can find a pain-relieving posture. People can often find a pain relieving position, like lying down, but if your painful position is sitting, try playing around with the arch in your back, the position of your shoulders, and the position of your head to find a new sitting posture that's more comfortable (even if you find your most comfortable posture is completely flexed forward, that will give a lot of good information to your PT about where to go with treatment). 2. Pain with Movement vs. Pain with Rest Pain when you move that gets better with rest is likely from a muscle strain/tendinopathy, tissue impingement, or a biomechanics/ loading issue. Pain that gets worse when you’re stationary or right when you start moving after you’ve been stationary for a while is likely an inflammatory or resting posture issue and movement will be your best friend.
your finger is really trying to tell you is that it doesn’t like staying in that position for long. You can either train your body to adapt (like learning the splits) or concede you’ve reached your body’s limit and change positions. 4. Chronic pain. Pain that lasts for longer than 3 months is considered chronic pain. This is because if there was any tissue damage, that’s enough time for everything to be fully healed. If the same tissues are still damaged, then (outside of pathological causes) there is most likely a biomechanics/loading issue. Sometimes it’s overloading but it could also be under- loading (not giving your tissues enough input to become stronger) that’s causing your pain to persist. Since there's a good chance that tissue damage isn't playing a significant role in many people's chronic pain, things like fear of movement, expecting imminent pain, and tissue sensitization could all be influencing the way you move and perceive sensations. Changing your beliefs and attitudes towards pain is a major piece in finally overcoming it. For help finding your best postures and to encounter a new perspective, request a FREE head to toe discovery session.
® Pro Tip: Osteoarthritis involves a loading issue that leads to joint stiffness. If you only address joint stiffness without addressing joint loading, you’ll be stuck in a relapsing pain cycle. 3. Pain that comes “out of nowhere” If you get pain that starts only after you’ve been walking or running for a certain amount of time, it’s potentially a stability muscle fatiguing and either a joint or a tissue complaining about the extra load. For the people who sit at their desk for hours and then think, "This neck pain just came out of nowhere!", it’s really your body trying to ask you to change postures or positions to give some of your tissues a break. Your body has the capacity to do all sorts of things so the thing it dislikes the most is to be confined to a single position. The Finger Demonstration: If you're having a hard time seeing how sudden strong pain could just be your body asking you to move, take one of your fingers and bend it all the way back. You might feel a stretch but this shouldn't hurt until after a few seconds when it'll start to really hurt. Nothing is damaged and nothing is likely to get damaged so all
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