I suppose the hardest thing to understand is that pain is in the brain. Yes, we feel it in our knees/back/4th toe on the left, but pain is processed and graded as to its importance in the brain.
And a big problem with on-going pain is it grows in importance. Pain is an output from the body of highest priority. When something is hurting, that sensation interferes with all other thoughts, which can be very annoying indeed. And as pain continues to bug us, we pay more and more attention to it and the sensation pathways from the body to the brain change, so any sensation coming from that area is treated as pain – meaning that sensations that are not at all threatening, like the brush of our clothes on our skin, come to be interpreted as painful.
The other problem with pain is it stops us from moving. And less and less movement only leads one way – and that isn’t good.
When we have pain, we go to see various specialists, including surgeons, and have MRI scans done and so on.
And then even more fun begins: we are told we have no cartilege in our knees, the discs are degenerating in our spines, we have wear and tear in our joints from aging. The thought of a crumbling disc is horrifying: who dares to move their spine if they imagine it disintegrating into a pile of dust! Maybe we are scared because we have a subluxed spine or we’re on the the slippery slope of sciatica.
There is an Australian research group, called the NOI Institute, with NOI standing for Neuro Orthopaedic Institute. One of their heads is a very funny man called David Butler. This group researches pain and seeks to teach us all stuff about it. And pain is complex!
In their recent blogs, the NOI group are seeking to point out the above catastrophic language can only make things worse.
Catastrophic and negative:a ‘wear and tear’, ‘subluxed spine’, ‘a bad back’ – or that terrifying word: ‘degeneration’.
Compare this with such alternatives as, ‘wear and repair’, ‘bend and mend’; ‘motion is lotion’.
The above three are absolutely true! Knee cartilege can repair itself, getting more mobile helps restore joints and tight muscles.
All this said, I admit I do have a big thing about people’s knowledge of their own abilities pre-pain. Most think they need to fling themselves about willy nilly, and that a bit of back ache or a tight calf is nothing to worry about; it’s certainly not a reason to stop moving, but it is a warning sign that things are not in balance! It is something to pay attention to. Doing 15 press ups badly leads to horrible movement patterns and, sooner or later, injury. And then people stop moving because they have torn a ligament in their shoulder or have impingement or they dislocated it…..
Here is a link to the NOI latest blog. I hope you read it and find it gives you something to think about, whether it applies to you or someone you know.https://noijam.com/2018/07/28/visualisation-of-question-7-in-the-explain-pain-assessment-eight-great-questions/