Understanding Persistent Pain Differently

These days, we deal more with chronic and persistent pain than we do with acute pain. Pain that has been ongoing for more than several weeks. Causes for persistent are not quite the same as those of acute pain, which often arise from tissue injuries such as sprains. However, pain often persists even long after the tissue has healed. Chronic pain is increasingly common even in young adults.

Below is a great video by Professor Lorimer Moseley and David Moen that gives us a different perspective on persistent pain and what we can do about it.

Pain is a warning signal from your brain that depends on credible evidence to say your body needs protecting. Sometimes it gets too protective and you get unnecessary warning signals.

Persistent pain can be extremely uncomfortable, particularly when doing activities that are harder than usual or that you are not used to doing.  It is important to remember though that even though you may be in a lot of pain, this does not mean that there is a serious underlying problem with the tissues of your body.  Similarly, persistent pain is not a sign that you are damaging your body more. 

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Pain scientists now understand that there are many ways our nervous system ends up producing unnecessary warning signals. Take control impairment for example.

 This ‘control impairment’ or inability to isolate the body’s movement leads to mechanical faults, which eventually causes more loading and compression of the joints resulting in pain. Imagine if your back is stiff and it feels like just one part of the back is supporting all the stress when you move, how much better will it feel when the back is ironed-out and relaxed?

Chronic pain or persistent pain is different from acute or sub-acute pain, which are pains that happen suddenly and commonly from an injury and lasts anywhere from 2 weeks to 3 months after respectively.

Source: www.tamethebeast.org/