Pain

Why is it important to know about pain?

Pain is the most common reason that someone comes for treatment. There have been huge developments in our understanding of pain and how this applies to manual therapy.

Very significantly, studies indicate that a thorough understanding of why you are hurting can help to give you more control over your pain. Your treatment is aimed at reducing your pain and will include education about your pain and ways to move in a way that can reduce it.

Why do we have pain?

Pain helps to keep us out of danger and prevents us from harming ourselves. It allows our tissues the time and space to go through the healing process.

What causes pain?

Pain is a sensation that is caused by your nerves and brain (nervous system) and particularly your brain. It is an output from your brain not an input to your brain and is similar to hunger or thirst in that it is meant to bring about an action.

If pain is all in the nervous system, why do I feel as though my joints, muscles, and bones hurt?

When the brain receives a message that it interprets as a threat, it wants to know more about it.

It increases the sensitivity of the nerves surrounding the area it 'sees' as being threatened.

Sensitized nerves are more easily stimulated by movement and cause the surrounding muscles to tighten up (muscle spasms). This has the effect of reducing the stimulation to the nerves.

Muscle spasms reduce movement, which reduces pain by decreasing the stimulation of the nerves. It also prevents further damage and allows tissue to heal.

Because the nerves are in the areas that move (muscles, joints, bone surfaces) this is where you feel the pain although it's the nerve that is actually sensitized.

The idea is to do things that do not greatly increase your pain. Some stiffness or pain is ok but if your activity causes the pain to move down your leg then stop it immediately.

When should I be worried?

• If your pain gets progressively worse over more than 3 days
• If you have any sudden weakness of your leg or difficulty walking
• If you experience any numbness and tingling in your groin or inner thigh area
• If you have any changes in your bowel or bladder activities - loss of control or inability to initiate urination

If you experience any of the above symptoms then you should see your GP.

The information contained above is from the vast repository of expertise and information that is somasimple, the work of David Butler and Lorimer Mosely, particularly their excellent book on Explain Pain and the pioneering work of Patrick Wall and Louis Gifford