Once upon a time all the lands were fraught with persistent pain.
So widespread was this affliction that one in four people experienced it.
The pain lasted for more than three months it shadowed their daily lives,
held them back from everyday activities and the interventions they tried proved useless.
Hey pain go away we've tried it all but still you stay, moving less, taking pills,
knives and needles and still we're sore we can't take no more! No more!
But the pain remains like a loyal companion.
The people's hopes faded and they became
resigned to living with the pain only now the pain was a beast.
Then along came a group of researchers of which I am one.
Back off big fella!
I'm professor Lorimer Moseley and I'm a pain scientist.
Pain scientists are starting to think differently about pain and its causes and we're making exciting discoveries,
like how the way you think about your pain can change the way it feels.
Over the next few minutes I'll help you to understand your pain
understanding is important because it can change how much things hurt and how
much your body can do and it can help you to tame the beast. First trust me about this
pain is not an accurate measure of tissue health pain is a
protector by making unpleasant feelings your brain changes your behaviour
so you can avoid injury or your tissues can heal sometimes pain is not helpful
like phantom limb pain. You don't expect a missing limb to ache but it does
and the pain is very real. So how do we explain this? Well pain is a warning signal from
your brain that depends on credible evidence to say your body needs
protecting sometimes pains too protective and you get unnecessary
warning signals. Pain scientists now understand that there are many ways our
nervous system ends up reducing unnecessary warning signals, take
conditioning for example. Think of Pavlov's dog every time food was offered
Pavlov rang a bell, of course the dog will salivate seeing the food.
This went on for a while, eventually the dog was conditioned to salivate for the bell alone.
Well conditioning is just one of the ways your body learns pain
and the longer your nervous system produces pain
the better it gets at producing it, your body learns pain. So what feeds this beast?
Well let's look at how pain works, in your body's tissues there are specific
neurons which normally only respond to harmful stimuli whether mechanical,
chemical or thermal. When they are activated they send a warning signal to
your spinal cord which can in turn send the signal to your brain,
this activity in neurons is called nociception and it's happening all the time,
but only sometimes results in pain, most of the time the brain protects you with
other things like movement. Once the warning signal reaches the brain the
brain makes sense of it based on the information arriving and a vast amount
of information already stored. If there's good reason to think protection is required
then your brain makes pain. One of our amazing discoveries is that you
can have pain without any physical stimuli, thoughts and places might
activate the warning signals and the pain feels exactly the same, it's not
just your brain your spinal cord also learns how to generate unnecessary
warning signals. So how do you know when your nervous system is learning pain?
You may notice if your pain spreads or comes on without warning, your body feels odd
and it's hard to move properly, your pain changes quickly with your mood
and small annoyances can set it off. Old injuries start to hurt again,
you're more sensitive to stimuli and the longer the pain goes on the more all of this occurs.
The old way we understood pain could not explain these things
and left many sufferers feeling like no one believed it was real
or for it to hurt so badly there must be a major tissue problem,
but we now know how persistent pain happens, so how can you tame the beast?
Pain is a very personal thing, there's no one-size-fits-all solution
and while you probably have well thought out coping strategies it's time to take a new
approach to dealing with and reducing your pain, one that focuses on retraining your pain system.
This might mean testing yourself physically
and moving more than you normally would, being honest about your
current attitudes and beliefs can also help as can asking your health professional new questions,
'How do I know if my pain system is being overprotective?'
'How do I retrain my pain system to be less protective?'
'How do I know if I'm safe to move?'
So be brave and have hope, because it is possible to tame the beast.
Visit our website for more information and questions to ask your health professional.
tamethebeast.org