We all have an idea of a painful event, a painful stimulus or an area of our body that seems to be the most familiar with pain. But why does it hang around? Is the tissue dysfunctional? Do you need surgery? Do you need medicinal imaging?
Typically in non-traumatic events or when we don’t have a specific moment to attribute our pain to we don’t typically need imaging. It’s been shown that the healthcare system over utilizes imaging which can lead to unnecessary procedures and increased financial burden to patients. So, how about medication?
Heard of the opioids crisis? Been a hot topic in recent years. The overall understanding should be that pain is a blessing…. to an extent. It’s our body’s way of telling us what is happening in our body and a pill to mask that, may not be the best course of treatment for mechanical pain. Plus, long-term use of pain meds leads to an up-regulation (or increase) in pain receptors that lead to the need for more and more pain meds to maintain your baseline. This now takes us to a terrible cycle of when and how to rid of the pain meds. So what do we do?
Just as the body can up-regulate pain receptors it can do the opposite (see graph)! By downregulating with education and treatment techniques we can bring your body’s threshold of pain near its original state. This isn’t done overnight, but more so with time and education. By educating our minds and our bodies we can introduce new movement patterns and a new understanding of pain. Pain does not ALWAYS = harm, and soreness IS safe! Have further questions on this topic?! Please reach out or comment below!
Words to Live By:
1) Soreness is SAFE
2) Pain does NOT ALWAYS = HARM
