Sunday 24 May 2015

Explain Pain Mosely and Butler

Explain pain: Moseley and Butler
Contents
Introduction 2
Chapter 1 Pain is normal 2
Chapter 2 Your remarkable danger alarm system 3
A closer look at alarm signals 3
The message is processed throughout the brain 4
Chapter 3 the damaged and deconditioned body 5
The healing process 5
Acid and inflammation in the tissues 5
Muscles 5
Discs 6
Skin 6
Bone and joints 6
The peripheral nerves 6
Dorsal root ganglion (mini brain) 6
Backfiring nerves 6
What you might notice with peripheral nerve problems 7
Symptoms of nerve problems 7
Chapter 4 Altered central nervous system alarms 7
The spinal cord as a magnifier of tissue reality 7
Brain 7
Thoughts are nerve impulses 8
Central sensitisation 8
Chapter 4 Response systems the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems 8
Endocrine response system 8
The Immune system 9
Immune boosting behaviour 9
Movements Strategies 9
Chapter 5 Modern Management tools 9
Fear of pain & avoidance 11
Coping with pain styles 11
Dysfunctional coping strategies 11
Chapter 6 Management Essentials 12
Tool 1 Education and Understanding 12
Practical Exercise 12
Tool 2 Graded exposure and pacing 12
Tool 3 accessing the virtual body 13
Summary 13
Purpose of Pain 13
Cause of Pain 13
Distinction pain and suffering 14
What else can cause pain, when you are not being harmed? 14
Our Pain system 14
Emotions 14
Beliefs 14
Behaviour 14
What can help? 15
Doctors 15
Understand your pain 15
Graded hierarchy 15
Mindfulness 15

Introduction

Pain is unpleasant, it is the brains way of protecting you, by getting you to stop what you are doing because you want the pain to stop.

Pain is used as an alerter to danger to stop you getting injured.

Pain is the outcome when the brain thinks you being threatened with injury.

If the brain thinks you are in danger, then you will have pain, even if there is no danger.

Most commonly pain occurs when there is actual or potential damage to the body, but this is only part of the story.

Pain is part of the body’s damage prevention systems, it is the light on the top of the Xmas tree.

                                                   

Chapter 1 Pain is normal

Descartes dualism provide the basis for most pain treatment but there are better ways to look at it than this.

Many every day aches and pains are caused by tissue damage. Memory of pain causes pain, to stop you making the same mistake twice, so you will associate things with pain.

Thoughts and emotions can be the source of pain, so the loss of a loved one can, quite literally hurt.

Pain says you are threatened and are in danger and need protecting. The trick is finding out why the brain thinks you are threatened.

The amount of pain you experience does not correlate with the amount of damage you are suffering.

Pain depends on context, which is what the brains interpretation uses. So a violinist’s left hand will be more sensitive to pain as this is the one that they use with the violin, as it is more valuable.

To distinguish between emotional and physical pain is unhelpful as the way pain however caused is processed in the same way.

When you have difficult emotions there are physical correlates, and difficult physical feelings, then you have emotional correlates. Emotions can affect muscle tension and cellular process, an unjust physical injury will have accompanying emotions.

Ignition cues=the things that combined, paper, petrol, match, cause pain

 

Unexplained pain is worse than explained pain. Context effects pain, males have higher thresholds if tested by women.

70% of people with prosthetics get pain where their limbs used to be. This shows how we have a virtual map of our body, in our mind, to know where it is. A schema in Merleau Ponty terms.

 

Chapter 2 Your remarkable danger alarm system

The brain reacts to inputs without us ever being conscious of them. Our brain tells us the amount, nature and location of danger in the body. When the alarm system doesn’t pick up on danger in diabetes and leprosy then there is real danger. If you didn’t get pain when you got appendicitis you would die, a pain system is very useful.  The pain system is augmented by the 5 senses which help us with self-preservation.

The brain is the alarm systems command centre. The brain is the safest part of the body as it is encased in bone, in a hydraulic casing.

A closer look at alarm signals

There are millions of sensors throughout your nervous system.

3 types of sensor

1.       Mechanical

2.       Heat

3.       Chemical

A neurone is an individual nerve cell, and sensors sit in the outside of them. When the sensor is activated it opens to take positively charged particles into the neurones in which it conducts to the next neurone. Theses sensors as well as your eyes, nose and ears are your first protectors against harm.

Some neurones transmit messages at 150 km per hour, and some only at 1km per hour. The messages they send are of the type temperature increase in my area, danger in my area. The burning, aching sensation is produced by the brain on the basis of all the inputs.

Nerves are in your skin, muscle and bone.

A dentist anaesthetic closes the neurones sensors, so they can’t transmit signals. The sting of a sting ray keeps the sensors open which makes it a hugely painful experience.

Sensors only last for a few days then they are replaced. Your sensitivity therefore is continually changing. Sensors are made in the neurones under the direction of your DNA, which will produce a different number of sensors depending on your needs at that time.

There are some special neurones that send danger signals in your tissue to the spinal cord. These nerves are called nociception and fire for any tissue danger.

When a neurones sensor is open it takes an electrical charge, when there are enough charges an action potential is created, an electrical spike that is transmitted to the brain. These signals are sent to the top of your spinal cord.

There is a synapse, i.e. gap, between the incoming messages from various neurones, to the one neurone which transmits these signals to the brain. This neurone only accepts certain types of input. Theses inputs can be memory reinforcer signals, day to day signals, and some reinforcing signals which is controlled by the immune system.

At the top of the spine not all danger messages get sent to the brain as the brain can also send out serotonin, morphine and other opioids which cause the neurones to lose their charge which means they don’t pass the signal on.

The message is processed throughout the brain

When the brain receives the danger message, then it needs to create a story to understand it and uses other sensory information, memories and beliefs to do this. When people are in pain hundreds of brain parts are in use simultaneously.

There are many parts of the brain used to express pain can be called the ignition nodes. These clusters of nodes are sensation, memory, movement. If these nodes are repeatedly hijacked they get very sensitive, neurotaggged. A pain neurotag is the pattern and system of pain expression, i.e. the specific ignition nodes.

The neurotag for pain then is the lit up patter of clusters of nodes that are being used in this pain experience. These parts are connected electronically and chemically. Many of the ignition nodes are activated by a wide range of stimulus that grab your immediate attention that is why some people with chronic pain can have the pain activated by changes in temperature. Thus pain experience is across a number of systems, movement, cognition, sensation, concentration, fear…. And every experience of pain is unique, although will follow certain patterns,

The brain is an orchestra and can produce pain like music in many different ways. There is a stickiness and an n habitual aspect of this, in that the orchestra if it plays the same tune all the time, doesn’t know anything else, people involved in other tunes stop playing. There are more possible connections in the brain than particles in the universe. Millions of synapses link and unlink every second.

There are many human systems involved in pain

1.       Sympathetic\para sympathetic system

2.       Endocrine system (control metabolism, bp, cortisol)

3.       Immune system

4.       Muscles

All these systems are like sprinters good to use in short dosages but you get problems if they are used for a too long period.

 

The immune system can make you sleepy to promote healing.

Pain motivates you to escape, it seeks help and grabs attention

Motor system can protect the damaged area

 

Chapter 3 the damaged and deconditioned body

Whenever you are injured in every day wear and tear the healing processes of the body start to work. Pain is a good guide to the healing process, sometimes rest helps, sometimes movement. Healing only happens once, and it can happen imperfectly and leave scars.

 

The healing process

Tissues become inflamed, which brings the body’s immune and rebuilding cells to the area. A scar is formed, the tissue is remodelled as best as it can be. Two main things that determine healing speed are blood supply and tissue requirement. Ligaments for instance have a poor blood supply so take longer to heal.  Pain should diminish as tissues heal, sometimes it goes before the process is complete. After the heal the tissue may not be as mobile but it is repaired.

Soft tissue takes 2-4 weeks, bone up to 12 weeks, then there’s remodelling for bones which can take many months, even years.

 

Acid and inflammation in the tissues

Cells produce acidic by products, if you sit on a rock the by-products cannot be removed so you get a build-up of acid and alarm bells to move

Any disease with itus at the end is an inflammatory problem.  Inflammation is the most primitive form of defence.

When you’re damaged, there’s an inflammatory soup created of histamine, white blood cells that fight infection, create scars and rebuild tissues. Inflammation makes joints stiff. The swelling gets blood and healing chemicals to the area. This is the case for acute inflammation, chronic is different.

Muscles

Muscles are quite hard to damage, you can get micro tears and they do have a lot of sensors, but to tear a muscle is really really unlikely. Muscles have great blood supply and repair themselves quickly.

The body, the muscles are the conduit between brain and world.

Spasm and limping are muscle protecting behaviour.

Discs

Discs in your back are not free floating, and can’t pop out, they are surrounded by bone and cartilage. Discs degenerate naturally as part of the aging process.

The most common disc injury is the straining of ligament tissue

Skin

Skin is our biggest organ, but is rarely associated with chronic pain. A lot of understanding about pain comes from the skin.

There is an area of the brain, that relates to each part of your skin, and the more important it is, the more area it has. If you use a part of your body more, therefore you will have a bigger part of the brain allocated to it.

Skin slides as we move.

 

Bone and joints

Joints have a thin super sensitive layer that covers them that is what hurts when you tap your shin.

If a change in the body is slow the body concludes it is not in danger, so doesn’t put the pain alarm on.

The brain likes messages from joints so it can alter posture and balance in relation to that information.

Smashed bones can heal within 6 weeks.

The peripheral nerves

There are hundreds of meters of peripheral nerves in your body. Nerves are cords, 50% ligaments 50% neurones.. The nerves can be sensors for the brain, or driving muscle activity or the sweat system.

The ligaments of a nerve have nerve endings in them.  Nerve sensors can be activated by stress chemicals! Nerves slide as you move.  Damage to nerves may not be apparent for days\weeks. No scans show nerve damage up, but pressure or stretching they are very sensitive to.

 

Dorsal root ganglion (mini brain)

First place information from the nerves get modulated and evaluated. The DRG has the DNA that produces neurones and sends them around the body. DRG tunes into chemicals in blood, and produces changes in neurones accordingly

 

Backfiring nerves

Neurones can backfire, so the signal gets sent up from the periphery to the brain, to say danger, before it reaches the brain, one of the dominos falls back on itself and this can end up with the inflame message being received by the initiating neurone, when actually it didn’t need to.

 

What you might notice with peripheral nerve problems

Tennis elbow is a nerve problem. 

Symptoms of nerve problems

Pins and needles

Sometimes burning pain

Pain at night especially in hands and feet

Movement makes it worse

Have small trigger points

Nerves can become sensitive to stress, to the cortisol in the blood, which can set up a vicious cycle where the unexplained pain which makes you stressed is interpreted by the nerve as a danger, then can produce more pain in the nerves.

Peripheral nerves can produce some odd symptoms

Nothing for days or weeks after problem then big hit of symptoms: itchiness of skin, water running in skin, ants on skin       

Chapter 4 Altered central nervous system alarms

Pain nearly always involves something going on in the tissue, it might be inflammation, underused, unfit, or slow healing.

The dorsal horn, responsible for sending messages from Dorsal Root Ganglion to brain, gets quicker at sending signals of a certain type the more of them it receives.  The neurones change so they stay open longer, to allow more positive charge to go through them. This means that you become more sensitive to danger. What also happens is that neurones are produces with sleeper sensors that are asleep until they are needed that effectively produce memories of pain. I think the previous all relates to the DSG’s processing of incoming messages in the dorsal horn. So our increase of sensitivity to pain, our memory of pain is in the DSG. The DSG can also produce neurones to go sprouting, so this is the creation of supersensitive pain remembering neurones next to neurones which actually have pain, so you get a spread of pain.

The spinal cord as a magnifier of tissue reality

So as soon as there is enough pain signals, then the dorsal horn amplifies this, by reducing sensitivity, creating doormat pain memory neurones.

What should happen is when the injury reduces so does the sensitivity,

Brain

When the brain areas are light up, the pain neurotag, what that does is to enhance information or activity from that area, so this will also bring back related pain memories

There are also changes in the virtual body, where the pain area smudges and now occupies surrounding parts as well.

When the brain is sensitised then it also makes you more sensitive to pain, gets your other systems going. Sympathetic, endocrine, motor,

Thoughts are nerve impulses

As we can predict situations we can avoid tissue damage, but this prediction of tissue damage can produce pain.  When you are highly sensitised to pain, thinking about it, seeing someone else in pain, or doing what would produce pain in you, can produce pain. If you imagine a movement then your mirror neurones fire, and produce something of how it would feel if you did it yourself.

 

Central sensitisation

This is when the brain or the spinal cord become highly sensitised. Symptoms are:

1.       You are given multiple diagnostic labels

2.       The pain persists a long time after the tissue has healed

3.       The pain spreads

4.       The pain worsens

5.       Lots of movements hurt

6.       Pain becomes less predictable

a.       Latency, dynamic triggers

7.       Pain more related to thoughts and feelings

8.       Pain linked to previous threat, or anticipated threat

 

 

Chapter 4 Response systems the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems

The sympathetic nervous system is a rapid response system to help you do things quickly for a short time.

In a fight or flight the adrenal gland on top of your kidney releases adrenaline into your body (it is there already regulating y our breathing, blood pressure and pupil size). The sympathetic nervous system, then delivers adrenaline to all tissues. Its brain driven and responds to threat. Adrenalin diverts energy to brain, muscles and heart. It also constricts the gut. Adrenaline happens before the decision to fight, flight or freeze.

With chronic inflammation, nerve damage, and heightened alarm sensitivity, then adrenaline in your system can amplify the danger messages and cause pain.

Sympathetic liberates energy, and the para sympathetic conserves it. When the para-sympathetic system is activated then you get tissue repair, this will be the case during, rest, sleep and meditation.

Endocrine response system

The endocrine system works with the sympathetic nervous system, is harder to get going but lasts longer when it does get going.  Threatening inputs to the hypothalamus make it release hormones which get converted into cortisol by the adrenal gland.

Cortisol is a protector it slows down the body processes which are not used and enhances the ones that are.  Healing, rest and digest are put on hold by cortisol. It activates muscle, brain and endorphin support.

Long term high cortisol levels is associated slow and poor healing, depression, loss of libido and loss of memory.  Cortisol production peaks in the morning, and is as its lowest in the early evening. People with maintained inflammation often have higher levels of pain the evening when their cortisol levels are down.

Oxytocin, is a pain reliever, helps lose weight and can be got from cat pats and hugs.

 

The Immune system

You immune system knows who you are and attacks who you are not. Cytokines form a mobile protection system in the body. Cytokines can enable inflammation and when you have flu more are produced giving that lethargic and feverish sense.

Our immune system has a memory, it’s why vaccinations work.  Long term pain leads to more pro inflammatory cytokines. The immune system may underpin the spread of pain. Old injuries can come back when there are more pro inflammatory cytokines.

The immune system can be fired by the interpretation of your brain.

 

Immune boosting behaviour

1.       To have an influence on the quality of your life

2.       To be in control of your life and treatment options

3.       To have family and medical support

4.       To have a strong belief system

5.       To have a sense of humour

6.       To exercise appropriately

Movements Strategies

The brain produces pain to motivate you to protect your body, this is a good short term strategy and invokes the fight or flight response. It tenses the big muscles trapezium and hamstrings. These are two of the favourite ones turned on, but if they are turned on for too long you get problems:

1.       Smaller muscles around them go to sleep

2.       They produce a lot of acid

3.       They get stiff

 

Back pain is associated with a change in trunk muscle activity. Fear of pain can get a change in trunk muscle activity to the non/ “normal” activity.

You need, when rehabilitated to work out what threats you are frightened of then see if you are changing the way you hold your body in light of this. It may well be that this protective mechanism is exposing some tissue to danger and preventing healing

 

Chapter 5 Modern Management tools

Different groups of professionals will offer different opinions on your pain. Health professionals have frameworks on which they base their work.  The framework of this book is neuromatrix i.e. the components involved in the sensation of pain, the neurotag, pains unique relationship and virtual body, i.e. that there is a representation of your body that is constructed on the basis of value, that dictates how pain will be felt, i.e. the threshold for a highly valued part of the body will be lower than other parts.  It sees that there are various ignition cues to pain:

1.       Tissue damage

2.       Fear

3.       Memories

4.       The wrong information

5.       Various circumstances

Thoughts, ideas, knowledge and fears are seen as having the same electrochemical impulses as nerves.

The onion metaphor is how there are many different components that can contribute to the pain experience.  The onion causes the orchestra to play the tune.

The Onion

1.       Nociception (The danger receptor neurones)

a.       This can be fired for actual tissue damage, or from a tissue scar, as it doesn’t feel right, or from unfit or sensitive tissues

2.       Beliefs and attitudes

a.       Remembering that it was my fault that I did this, whilst I was sitting down, so avoid sitting down for too long. When you sit it is the belief that can cause pain

3.       Suffering

a.       Wrestling against the pain, and how much you shouldn’t have it, and how bad it is creates more pain

4.       Pain escape behaviour

a.       The escape behaviour may be associated with previous pain incidents so remind you of pain and cause it. Trying and failing to find a cure.

5.       Social Environment

a.       Perhaps people are angry with you due to your pain. This in turn will be painful, and make you see the pain as worse. Pleasure giving activity may be curtailed due to what society expects about people with pain

Ideal health professional questions:

1.       What is happening in my body

a.       Is there any scientific backing

2.       How long will it take to get better

a.       Short and long term goals

3.       What are all the options for management

a.       From science what is likely to help

b.       What might help

c.       What wont

4.       What can I do for it

5.       What can you do for it

6.       Is there anything nasty that needs special attention

7.       What do my physical findings, e.g. x-ray, mris etc. really mean

The Onion cont.

Anything that adds to the brains sense that it needs to protect itself could be part of your pain maintenance.

 

Pain:

1.       Your brain wants to protect yourself from anything it concludes is dangerous

2.       In persistent pain, your pain alarm system is sensitised, and even minor threats can encourage the orchestra to play the pain tune, a tune it knows only so well

 

Fear of pain & avoidance

So I have pain I don’t know the cause, I don’t know when it’s going to come exactly, so I reduce activity to avoid this pain, but then reduce my quality of life and normal working of my body, which then gets unfit..

 

Coping with pain styles

The brain and body use the same systems to cope with threats be they physical or non-physical.

Effective coping mechanisms for pain

1.       Problem solving

2.       Understanding pain

3.       Changing thoughts, beliefs and behaviours

 

Coping strategies are either active or passive.

Useful active coping strategies

1.       Nudging the edge of pain, neither avoiding it or pushing through

2.       Making short term attainable goals and long term goals

3.       Remaining positive

4.       Improving understanding

5.       Exploring different ways to move and do things

 

Dysfunctional coping strategies

1.       Boom\Bust

2.       Pain avoidance

Pain avoidance

Pain kicks in after trigger, stop trigger, other triggers, stop those activities. Reduced activities increase the significance of pain and its suffering, makes the body unfit and gives higher sensitivities

Boom\Bust

Pain comes on, tolerate it, pain chemicals build up then knock you out for days.  So here what the sensation of pain is becomes bigger than it needs to be, pain is associated with the pushed through build up, rather than the initial trigger.  As the pain is seen as bigger activity starts to be reduced, then you push through and repeat.

 

Chapter 6 Management Essentials

There is no single solution to all pains but there are three tools that are shown to be helpful

1.       Education and understanding your pain

2.       Graded exposure

3.       Accessing the virtual body

The unknown is scarier than the known, so understanding your pain reduces it.

Motion teaches the body how to work again, teaches the orchestra how to play other tunes but the pain tune.

 

Tool 1 Education and Understanding

The best approach to pain, is to understand it and nudge it, to not avoid it nor push through it.

For recurrent pain, it makes most sense to say the recurrence has been provoked as there have been enough cues to the virtual representation of the old injury.

Hurt does not always equal harm

The brain can do many things to stop you injuring yourself

1.       Pain

2.       Fainting

3.       Vomit

4.       Sleep

Practical Exercise

If you have pain then

1.       What activated the alarm

2.       Get to know your pain

Tool 2 Graded exposure and pacing

Movement is the major system that is affected by pain.

1.       Create a graded hierarchy that has the things that you really want to do at the bottom, and do just a little of them. Or alternatively something you really need to do more of.

2.       Create a baseline of level of activity you can do without flare up

3.       Plan your progression

4.       Gradually increase and don’t flare up, but don’t freak out if you do

5.       If you can put fun into the hierarchy then it’s going to be more achievable

How graded exposure works is that it gradually increases the flare up line and the protect by pain line and tissue tolerance line. The graded exposure show the body that it doesn’t need to put on the pain alarm system as it can do more without problem, as it does more so the tissues get fitter and more robust and resilient.

 

Tool 3 accessing the virtual body

1.       Imagine performing exercises without pain

2.       Take a painful movement and alter its aspects, have different gravitational aspects, do it in water.

3.       Do the exercise in a number of conditions and contexts

4.       Add varying balance challenges

5.       Add varying sensory inputs music , close eyes etc. if you can do a movement that is usually painful without pain, then do it in the mirror so you can reinforce the idea in your brain

6.       Alter the environment of the activity

7.       Do the movement in different emotional states

8.       Add distractions which will disable the pain neuro tag

9.       Plan functional activities which include your feared movement

10.   People with persistent pain, move with regimented movement. So break your movement down into section, and alter the sections, lead with different legs, ensure your head is up etc.

11.   Use sliders so these are distractionary opposite movements, so head back when leg out

12.   Perform movements in a neighbouring tissue friendly way

13.   Playing with you glitches, when you notice some compensatory pain related behaviour, try altering it. Keeping it can confirm I’ve got pain.

14.   Let your mind go

 

Summary

Purpose of Pain

Pain is one of the bodies signals that there is danger, and you need to stop what you are doing to protect yourself, fainting and vomiting being two of the other.  All pain is created by the brain.

 

Cause of Pain

We establish that we are in danger, and that we need pain through a number of ways.

1.       Tissue receptors

a.       There are mechanical, chemical and heat sensors in tissues.

2.       Cognitions

a.       Our beliefs about the situation: if we are in danger and if a pain response is the right one.

However feeling pain doesn’t always mean that you are in danger, and should stop what you are doing.

Tissue damage heals with 4-6 weeks, bone damage heals within 6- 8 weeks.

 

Distinction pain and suffering

This distinction is between pain as the primary sensation, when you strip away thoughts about pain  and the reaction too pain, it is the pure sensation (although If you dig into it its not this simple as mind and body=pain).

Suffering is all the extra distress on top of the initial pain, what you think about the pain, how unfair, how debilitating, the things you don’t do because of it (which causes distress). Pain management techniques are predominantly suffering management techniques and when you reduce the suffering, many times the pain goes too.

 

What else can cause pain, when you are not being harmed?

Our Pain system

An increase in sensitivity, the brain can produce more\less tissue sensors, and can change its sensitivity levels to when it thinks there is danger: it becomes over-protective.

Neurones can backfire so where the tissue receptors that initiated the pain might be in your foot, it is conceivable that you have pain in your hip.

The immune system, has a memory and old pains can reoccur again when there isn’t tissue damage

When there is chronic pain from a body part, in the brain next door areas can then be activated (smudging) and there can be sensitivity in nearby areas to the problem area

Emotions

Stress: this can increase the sensitivity of neurones, and then increase the experience of pain.

Beliefs

Our beliefs, that pain means we are being harmed and how bad it is, the memories, associations of the situation.

How important the body part is to us that is in pain, a violinists fingers will be more receptive to pain than a cyclist.

Its also the case that just because the body is “injured” it doesn’t mean there should be pain. Over years the body gets wears and tears, if these wears and tears are small enough they don’t offend the brains pain alarms.  The result can be when people die and you looked at their spines, you couldn’t tell who was crippled with pain and who wasn’t.

 

Behaviour

Avoidance

When people are in pain they can avoid doing things that increase the hurt, which makes a lot of sense in the initial tissue damage phase of pain.  However there are two parts of this, one if exercise is stopped because of a pain in one area, whilst its healing up 8 weeks, if all exercise is stopped, the rest of the body grows weak. Secondly when healing is done if there is still pain, and no exercise is done on the painful area, then the body doesn’t get to realise it is ok again.  Whilst it will be noted lower down how to do this, slowly and gently is the approach so a strong pain response isn’t made by the brain.

 

Adjustments

When there is pain, people will adjust how they move. A foot pain can lead to a limp, or a problem in the left hip will change the gait. There are a couple of problems here. Firstly another part of the body can get overused, and cause pain, secondly doing this reinforce the brains idea that there is a problem with original areas, and thirdly the exercise that is needed to get the original area back and working isn’t being done.

 

Boom and Bust:

If when you feel good you do too much, you can make the pain worse, the brain can get more sensitised, you can strengthen your beliefs that there is something really wrong with your body. Then you will go into a bust mode, where you don’t exercise, don’t stretch and strengthen your body which again will weaken your body, strengthen your beliefs about the pain, increase your sensitivity.

 

What can help?

Doctors

Ensure that you have no current acute tissue damage that needs treatment.

 

Understand your pain

Read the explain pain book and write down your own understanding of your pain. This will help you find out what is most helpful for you, and reduce the pain as you will see that hurt doesn’t equal harm

 

Graded hierarchy

Create a graded hierarchy (with a physio)  of exercises to stretch and strengthen, to get your overall body back to its unified and glorious working unity.  You may well want to do some imaginal exercises in this hierarchy, which will help loosen your brain up too.

Ensure that the graded hierarchy is moving towards something you care about.

 

Mindfulness

Firstly read either https://jonkabat-zinn.com/offerings/books/ the pain relief book or if you like a longer read the full catastrophe living book

 

Follow the body scan meditation below

https://mbsrtraining.com/mindfulness-body-scan-by-jon-kabat-zinn/

or

https://www.betterlisten.com/products/series-1-guided-mindfulness-practices-with-jon-kabat-zinn

 

This body scan will reduce stress and tension (reducing pain) and also give you a pain management tool, through breathing in and out of the pain site. What you will also find is that it may in time reduce your suffering, through just being with the pain sensation which changes moment to moment

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