But we now know how persistent pain happens. Or that for it to hurt so bad, there must be a tissue problem. The old way we understood pain left many sufferers feeling like no one believed it was real. And the longer the pain goes on, the more all of this occurs. Your pain changes quickly with your mood and small annoyances can set it off. Your body feels odd and it’s hard to move properly. So how do you know when your nervous system is learning pain? You may notice your pain spreads or comes on without warning.
But it’s not just your brain - your spinal cord also learns how to generate unnecessary warning signals. Thoughts and places might activate the warning signals. One of our amazing discoveries is that you can have pain without any physical stimuli. If there’s reason to think protection is required, then your brain makes pain. Once the warning signal reaches the brain, the brain makes sense of it based on the information arriving and the vast amount already stored. Most of the time, the brain protects you with other things like movement. This activity in neurones is called ‘nociception’ and it’s happening all the time. When they are activated, they send a warning signal to your spinal cord, which can in turn send a signal to your brain. – whether mechanical, chemical or thermal. So what feeds this beast? Let’s look at how pain works… In your body’s tissues, there are specific neurones, which normally only respond to harmful stimuli. And the longer your nervous system produces pain, the better it gets at producing it.
Conditioning is just one of the ways your body learns pain. Eventually the dog was conditioned to salivate for the bell alone. Of course, the dog would salivate seeing the food. Think of Pavlov’s dog… Every time food was offered, Pavlov rang a bell. Pain scientists now understand that there are many ways our nervous system ends up producing unnecessary warning signals. Sometimes it’s too protective and you get unnecessary warning signals. So how do we explain this? Pain is a warning signal from your brain that depends on credible evidence to say your body needs protecting. Sometimes pain is not helpful – like phantom limb pain. By making unpleasant feelings, your brain changes your behaviour – so you can avoid injury or your tissues can heal. Understanding is important because it can change how much things hurt and how much your body can do… And can help you to tame the beast.įirst, trust me about this… Pain is not an accurate measure of tissue health. Over the next few minutes, I’ll help you to understand your pain. Like how the way you think about your pain can change the way it feels. Pain scientists are starting to think differently about pain and its causes. “Back off, big fella!” I’m Professor Lorimer Moseley and I’m a pain scientist. The peoples’ 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. Hey, pain! Go away! We’ve tried it all But still you stay!īut the pain remains like a loyal companion.
Hey, pain! Go away! We’ve tried it all But still you stay! Moving less, Taking pills, Knives and needles It shadowed their daily lives… held them back from everyday activities … and the interventions they tried proved useless… So widespread was this affliction that one in four people experienced it. Once upon a time, all the lands were fraught with persistent pain.