Why You Should Address Your Pain Early
What is chronic pain?
Chronic pain is categorized by symptoms of pain that last longer than three months. Living with pain can be physically and emotionally exhausting, and it’s beneficial to get your symptoms addressed sooner rather than later. The field of chronic pain is extremely vast, and new research continues to expand experts’ knowledge about this topic.
How does our body experience pain?
Our nerves are our main source of communication between our brain and the external environment surrounding us; they carry messages from stimuli applied to our bodies and send the information to the brain to be interpreted. We have many different types of nerves, and depending on which type of nerve a particular stimulus activates, the brain will perceive the signal as pain or any of the numerous sensations we experience in life (examples include cold, loud noises, sight/vision, smell, touch/pressure against the skin.)
How does the nervous system change when we experience chronic pain?
When your body experiences pain for long durations (several weeks/months/years) the signaling pathway between the nerves that communicate pain and the brain actually becomes much more sensitive and responsive, which is not ideal. Your brain may start to interpret stimuli that are usually non-painful, as pain. Your sleep may become disrupted. The area of your body where you feel the pain may expand and become more widespread. You may experience mental fog because of your pain, which may start to impact other aspects of your life such as work, school, and your relationships.
Need an example?
To further illustrate this concept, I like to use the example of a smoke detector and oven. A normal smoke detector senses the presence of smoke near the ceiling and gives you a loud signal to alert you to the danger of an oven fire. In the case of chronic pain, your nervous system is like a smoke detector that has become extremely temperamental. Rather than waiting to signal until the fire is giving off smoke, it would alert you as soon as the oven is turned on. The oven being turned on should not normally be cause for concern, but because the smoke detector has become so sensitive, it now signals danger before there is even any true threat to the system. Similarly, your body normally alerts you when it’s experiencing pain to protect you and urge you to remove the source of the pain. However, if your body starts to perceive non-threatening stimuli as pain, you’ll be getting this alert so often that it may become disruptive to your everyday life, especially if there is no true threat present.
What can you do to address chronic pain?
Getting your pain addressed early can prevent these nervous system changes from taking place and will help your body maintain an appropriate response to pain. If you wait to seek treatment until your pain has been going on for several weeks, months, or years, it may take longer to relieve your symptoms because these changes need to be undone. This doesn’t mean you’ll be stuck with your pain forever, it just means you may need to shift your expectations when it comes to your treatment timeline. Schedule an appointment today with one of our skilled clinicians and get a kickstart on your pain management!
Please call (312) 643-1555 or email info@dynamic-PT.com with any questions or to schedule your consultation today
