Education

Acute Pain 

The average pain most people encounter in their everyday lives is known as acute pain. Acute pain is an important defence mechanism that warns the body about potential or actual injury or disease so it/we can take defensive action e.g. you touch something hot and automatically pull away. If we are injured, or have an illness, pain killers are pretty effective at helping reduce this acute pain, as it is usually short lived. 

Chronic or Persistent Pain

This is a whole different experience.

• An initial injury may have appeared to be healed but pain persists
• It may be associated with a chronic illness like fibromyalgia or endometriosis.
• It may be difficult to establish the exact cause

Persistent pain impacts on all areas of life. It affects mobility, mood, ability to work, family relationships, socialising and everything that has meaning in our lives.

Not knowing when or how or if the pain will ever go makes it hard to be hopeful of returning to the life lived before pain. This uncertainty can also cause anxiety and stress on top of the pain already experienced. 

Why conventional medicine struggles to treat Persistent pain

The reason many doctors are unsuccessful in treating chronic pain is because they use the same treatment options as they use for acute pain. They don’t work because persistent pain is a completely different entity, it is not solely due to tissue damage but to changes in the nervous system.

The Pain Pathway
From an evolutionary perspective pain helps us survive. Pain signals travel at a phenomenal rate from an injured part, along nerves to the spinal cord and up into the brain. The brain registers the feeling of pain and brings it to our attention. This is the Pain Pathway and when it is working normally it protects us from harm.
We now know that chronic pain is caused by changes in the nervous system. The pain pathway that usually protects us is malfunctioning. These changes can occur anywhere along the pathway, from the nerve endings to the brain. This is not the same as saying the pain is all in your mind, it is real and caused by changes in your nervous system that have occurred because of a malfunction of the pain pathway.

New Approach to Pain

The Gate theory
Back in the 1960s two scientists, Melzack and Wall, published their ‘gate theory’ of pain.  They postulated that ‘a gate’ in the spinal cord affected the perception of pain. When it was open more pain signals would get through to the brain and when it was closed less would get through.
Although we now know that this is not the whole story what still holds true is the fact that many outside factors affect our perception of pain and it is possible to learn techniques that close the gate and decrease its intensity.

 Neuroplasticity

Over the last 20 years there has been a massive increase in our understanding of the mechanisms underlying chronic pain mainly thanks to the work of neuroscientists and their discovery of neuroplasticity.
It used to be thought that the brain’s structure was fixed and did not change in adulthood but we now know that the connections and neural circuits within the brain are highly plastic and adaptable. The brain changes and adapts in response to new experiences, learning and environmental factors, this is neuroplasticity.
Depending on the cause of the change the way the brain alters can be helpful or harmful.
One example of harmful neuroplasticity is chronic pain. As we have mentioned prolonged pain can cause the brain to rewire itself in a way that amplifies pain signals.
The good news is that the changes in the spinal cord and brain linked to pain are reversible.
Because the brain is plastic our brains and our pain are not fixed.
We will teach you simple mental and physical techniques so you can harness the power of neuroplasticity to retrain the brain and reset the nervous system.

Our experience has shown that even when someone has a life-limiting illness and a huge burden of disease they can, with help, learn techniques that empower them to take control of their pain and improve their quality of life. Everyone’s pain is unique, by exploring what it means for the individual and the impact it has on their life we can help them find ways to overcome the sense of helplessness and frustration that are often part of the pain experience.