Understanding Pain

Pain is something we have all experienced but did you know pain comes in many forms and can be triggered by many things - even your genes and psychology.

While pain can be beneficial by letting us know when our body is injured or in danger, pain can take on a more sinister role where the signals don't appear to be of any benefit at all. We see this particularly in chronic pain, some autoimmune issues and also pain with a psychological component.

Pain is a widespread problem today, delivering serious blows to people's health, happiness, and productivity. The experience of pain is highly subjective—people feel pain differently.

The BBC documentary 'The Secret World of Pain' explores the biological, psychological, and genetic aspects of pain. Events in early childhood also help determine how you experience and respond to pain later in life.

The good news is that your pain response is not irreversibly hardwired, despite it’s trigger. This is great news particularly if you suffer from chronic pain. However, the treatment of such issues usually requires an integrated approach to improve the chances of a quicker and full recovery.

With a few effective tools, you can manage pain effectively and reduce, if not eliminate, any reliance on painkiller drugs. This is important because these drugs introduce a whole new set of health risks, regardless of whether they are prescription or over-the-counter (OTC).
 

How Extensive Is the Pain Problem?

The statistics indicate that pain is a massive problem. According to a US study by the Institute of Medicine report, "Relieving Pain in America: A Blueprint for Transforming Prevention, Care, Education, and Research,"1 pain costs society between $560 billion and $635 billion annually—amounting to about $2,000 for every man, woman, and child living in the US. It would be a similar picture here in Australia and a big part of this cost is lost productivity.

Pain is an unfortunate sequela of many diseases, as well as their common medical treatments. Low back pain is the leading cause of pain in the US, according to NIH, followed headaches and migraines, neck pain, and facial pain.2 Back pain is also the leading cause of disability worldwide.3

Chronic Pain 'Defies Scientific Explanation'

Chronic pain is a particularly egregious problem across the globe. Globally, more than 1.5 billion people suffer from chronic pain, and about 3 to 4.5 percent of the world's population suffers from neuropathic pain, with incidence rates that increase with age.

In those with chronic pain, the pain response is flipped on—and stays on. For some reason, the feedback system is broken and repairing it is one of the greatest challenges facing healthcare today.

Emotions Play a Significant Role in Pain Intensity

Every pain experience activates different parts of your brain, creating its own neural signature, and this determines how much something hurts. Emotions play a key role, including anxiety, happiness, and sadness.

In the documentary, brain-imaging studies reveals how participants' brains light up differently when pain is paired with different emotions. In fact, multiple regions of your brain are involved with every pain experience—sensory, attention, motivation, and decision-making areas all contribute to how much pain you feel. Each pain experience is a unique, shaped by mood and context.

Emotional pain activates the same pathways in your brain as physical pain, which is one reason why being rejected "hurts" so much! The term "broken heart" turns out to be much more than a metaphor, as emotional stress is linked to chronic inflammation, lowered immune function, increased tumour growth, and other serious health concerns.

The Problem With Pain Killers

Painkiller addiction is at epidemic levels; in the UK, significantly more people are addicted to over-the-counter and prescription painkillers than to illegal drugs. In the US, it's a similar story. According to CDC, prescription painkiller overdoses killed nearly 15,000 Americans in 2008, which is more than three times as many as in 1999.4 Middle-aged adults have the highest prescription overdose rates. In 2010, there were four times more deaths among women from prescription painkiller overdoses than for cocaine and heroin deaths combined.5

Even non-narcotic painkillers are risky. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDs, are among the most widely used painkillers in the world. In the US, more than 70 million prescriptions for NSAIDs are written each year. And each year, an estimated 107,000 patients are hospitalised for NSAID-related gastrointestinal complications—at least 16,500 NSAID-related deaths occur each year among arthritis patients alone.

According to a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine and funded by the National Institutes of Health, patients with neck pain who used a Chiropractor and/or exercise were more than twice as likely to be pain-free in 12 weeks, compared to those who took medication. 6

At MindFitBody we use a unique 3 tiered approach to assist people in pain.

Physically 
If pain has been caused by an injury treatment is necessary to help restore normal function. For pain without an injury we need to look at the neurological signalling that is occurring. By scrambling the feedback that is going on via the nervous system the brain will be forced to re-evaluate its processing and generation of the pain response. Over time we can use a variety of techniques to assist in overcoming chronic pain in this way.

At MindFitBody we use a combination of Chiropractic, Kinesiology and acu-points to assist normal physical function. One of the key focuses is to assist the nervous system to function normally. This is where Neural Organisation Technique (NOT) can help. Originally developed by Dr. Carl Ferreri NOT uses an integrated approach to help stabilise the spine and pelvis as well as stimulating various reflexes and muscles that assist with the normal neurological feedback to the brain.

Physiologically 
Obviously our bodies require nutrients to function normally and the nervous system is no different. In relation to pain there are a variety of nutrients that must be present to normalise this response. The type of pain, its severity as well as your diet and stress levels are significant influencing factors. Each person will have different requirements and will need to be assessed on individual basis to determine if any dietary changes or supplements may be beneficial.

Psychologically
While it may be difficult to comprehend that your pain may have a psychological origin there is quite a lot of evidence to suggest this is a common occurrence with chronic pain. At MindFitBody we use a combination of approaches to assist us in changing the “trigger-response” effect and conditioning that occurs with chronic pain. One of the techniques we can use is called Neuro-Emotional Technique (NET) which was developed by Dr Scott Walker and is used by various practitioners worldwide. NET has been shown to alter the brain’s responses under stress with fMRI. 7

Addressing pain with an integrated approach provides a more likely positive outcome in a reduced time-frame given the multi-factorial nature of pain itself. This is particularly true of chronic pain. 

If you know anyone that suffers from pain that this may help please feel free to pass it on.

Yours in health,

​Dr Mark Symonds 

CHIROPRACTOR / NET PRACTITIONER
NATURAL INTEGRATIVE HEALTHCARE
BChiroSc, MChiro, C.C.W.P., NLP Master Coach

Sources and References

1. Institute of Medicine report: Relieving Pain in America, A Blueprint for Transforming Prevention, Care, Education and Research 2011

2. American Academy of Pain Medicine

3. Time March 25, 2014

4. American Academy of Pain Medicine

5. CDC Press Release July 2, 2013

6. Annals of Internal Medicine January 3, 2012

7. Monti, D.A., Tobia, A., Stoner, M. et al. “Neuro-emotional technique effects on brain physiology in cancer patients with traumatic stress symptoms: preliminary findings.” J Cancer Surviv (2017). doi:10.1007/s11764-017-0601-8.

8. Adapted from Dr Mercola's article - The Science of Pain Is Changing Rapidly