Are you still experiencing pain from an injury that happened several weeks/months/years ago?
You might be experiencing chronic pain in that area because your brain is seeking an appropriate stimulus to know if that injured site is safe to mobilize again.
If it hasn’t received that appropriate stimulus, then your brain will continue to give that area a pain signal until either:
A) You receive that appropriate stimulus(es) and then able to accurately mobilize that area in a safe manner or,
B) You take pain medication, which will only put a blanket over the symptoms and can potentially be harmful to your internal organs, vestibular system other parts of your nervous system etc. This option won’t actually help the primary issue in the long run, thus leading to unnecessary surgery or worse, adding more barriers to your physical & fitness goals. Or,
C) You choose to just “deal” with the pain, refuse to take any pain medication and hope the pain will go away miraculously. However, this way will not only limit your performance, you are also more prone for injuries in the future and are adding barriers from achieving your physical goals
Client Story –
I recently had a client who came to see me because he had pain in his ankle ever since he accidently banged it on a rock when swinging on a rope near an open body of water.
He injured his ankle 3 months ago but the pain still lingered on especially when he walks fast or runs.
I initially talked to him about the modern science of pain. I described to him how damaged tissue should only take a few days to a few weeks to heal. Not 3 months from what he is experiencing.
After an elaborate discussion with him, and gathered enough data from his health history, I asked him if he was experiencing one of the following emotions towards his ankle.
The emotions were either – Fear, Anger, or Suffering.
I then tested an unrelated muscle strength, to get a good understanding of how his nervous system is interpreting any stimulus I give him. I found that suffering was an emotion that has been on his mind when he tried to walk, run or even mobilize his ankle.
After completing the treatment of having him look at his ankle and think about suffering, his nervous system was ready to reset that type of pain stimulus.
I had him run down the hallway afterwards and he said the pain was 100% gone.
He said to me the big break thru he experienced during my treatment session was that when I told him that his ankle is not injured and that injured tissues heal.
So the next time you are experiencing pain, anywhere in your body and you blame that significant injury you had several weeks, months, or years ago. Remember that your brain is giving the body that pain signal not because there is anything wrong or damaged to the tissues but because of the lack of point A) or because you are on the path for point B) or C) as described above.
Remember this:
Pain ≠ Injury and Injury ≠ Pain.
Give your brain the stimulus that it is missing and you will be able to be more stable, more mobile and have less moments of moving into pain.
I hope this post resonates with you. If you know anyone who is in chronic pain please share this post and I can do my best to help them understand that their chronic pain can be resolved, no surgery or medication required. They just need the correct stimulus that their brain is seeking.
Please comment if you have any questions.
Thank you for reading my content.
