Chronic Pain: It is Not in Your Head
Picture by Gerd Altmann at Pixabay
Just because x-rays, MRIs, blood work, bone scans, and countless other tests you may have had do not show the cause of your pain does not mean it is all in your head. Your pain is real.
Treatment for pain that occurs without an obvious physical injury or pain that still exists long after tests show a body part is “healed” is largely lacking within our current healthcare system. As a result, individuals experiencing this type pain have mounting frustration from a lack of answers, and often feel dismissed and unheard. I speak from personal experience on this matter. Being treated like a drug seeker or being told you have normal female pain or that the tests show you are going to live a long time so you need to learn to live with it only adds to burden of living with unrelenting pain day after day.
The original definition of pain only included biological factors, such as tissue damage. In 2019, the International Association for the Study of Pain updated their definition of pain to include pain that is influenced by biological, psychological, and social factors. Demand for the definition of pain to expand beyond a biological basis came from substantial research evidence and acknowledgement within the medical community that pain can exist without the presence of tissue damage.
What does this mean? It means that all of your experiences in life can contribute to the pain you are feeling, including childhood trauma, racism, spirituality, cultural factors, your occupation, stress levels, injuries, abuse, participation in sport, your daily responsibilities, your view of pain, and many more. All of these factors impact your nervous system and how it communicates.
One of the ways your nervous system, and whole neural network, communicates is through pain signals. This response can be a good thing for short-term, also called acute, pain from an injury. It lets us know something is wrong and promotes the healing process within the body. Our nervous system sends signals to keep us safe and informs us about possible dangers—a type of alarm notification system.
If the circumstances do not improve or is constantly under fire from external stresses, this alarm system can stay on high alert. If it does not think we are listening to the initial alarm signals, it sends louder and more frequent signals, and the result can be long-term, or chronic, pain.
For more information on how to reset your nervous system and interrupt your pain cycle, contact Tonia for a free consultation at tonia@toniaandersonpsychology.ca or book a time now.