Pain management for the outdoor enthusiast and athlete...

What's the first thing that comes to mind when you hear 'pain management'? For many, it's medications, injections, stem cells etc... Treatments that are essentially made to mask the real problem(s). If you want real pain management I think it's important that you have a firm understanding of what pain really is...and what it isn't.

We can't talk about pain without talking about the brain.

The brain always has the final say as to whether an experience is painful or not.

Read that again.

That doesn't mean pain is 'in your head' or made up.

It does mean that pain comes from the brain.

Our brain is acting like a surveillance system for our body, constantly. It receives information from the senses (touch, vision, taste, smell, pressure, chemical changes in the body or tissue, sounds/noise etc.) and then interprets this information. The brain decides if the information received indicates a threat to your survival or not. This happens the same way a guard dog might indicate the threat of a stranger entering a property, versus its owner.

Stranger (threat) = bark (alert).

Owner (non-threat/safe) = zoomies (no alert).

zoooooooooooooooom

So let's now consider how many inputs the brain is constantly dealing with:

• Internal organ function

• Respiration (breathing): carbon dioxide and oxygen levels

• Blood sugar

• Cortisol

• Physical traumas

• Emotional state

• Sleep quality

• Ability to manage gravity and physical stress

  
  

  I could go on forever here. The point is, since there are so many variables, pain is potentially influenced by a million things!

  Unfortunately (or, actually, fortunately) it's not as simple as: physical damage = pain.

While this can appear confusing at first...it's actually quite helpful. Since we know that there are so many potential influences on pain, we can start to control/manage factors that may have been ignored or neglected which might be influencing our symptoms.

This could be as simple as regulating our blood sugar by choosing higher quality food sources, to reduce inflammation in the body. It could be cutting out alcohol to ensure we actually get high quality sleep so our body can repair itself. It could be mindfulness practice to improve our respiration and emotional stress level. It could literally be as simple as understanding that pain can be present when there's no actual damage to the body.

Think for a second about a paper-cut or stubbing your toe...both can be incredibly painful; but, how much damage actually occurred (assuming you didn't break your toe...)? Not much. Think about a tough break-up or losing a pet or a loved one. These hurt so badly; they're really painful. But there's no physical damage going on. Just a perception of threat.

Here's my point. If you've been struggling with a painful issue...there could certainly be some structural changes or damage going on in that area, signaling your brain that there's a problem. But there are also many other variables that could influence the degree/severity of your symptoms, as well as how quickly you can heal. So to manage your pain, chronic or acute, more effectively...control the controllables.

Fundamentals like sleep, nutrition, hydration, sunlight, meaningful hobbies and relationships, emotional regulation can massively impact pain frequency and severity, which means, you might not need to rely so heavily on band-aid fixes like cortisone, ineffective surgeries, anti-inflammatory meds.

If you're in North Kingstown, RI or nearby, and you need 1:1, personalized care that actually gets results, let's chat. Schedule a free call here.