The Primary Cause of Chronic Pain
What is the cause of most chronic pain? The research is demonstrating more and more that a strong driver of chronic pain is due to a problem in the nervous system itself leading to what is called neuropathic pain.
When you have an injury, sprain, strain, fracture, muscle tension, inflammation, or spasm, you have a nerve signal that fires off. When that happens, the signal tells the brain “OUCH!” Now, we understand through science that there is a secondary nerve that is involved in this process as well, which is most often the culprit. This has been found to be one of the primary reasons why most people get stuck in a chronic pain cycle, which of course leads to increased stress.
This nerve is called the proprioceptive nerve, but I want you to think of it like your GPS system… because it tells the brain where the problem is. When this nerve is faulty, the brain is saying, “I hurt, but I don’t know where the problem is.” Why is that important? Because the brain needs to know exactly where to target the issue and release what are called enkephalins, the body’s natural painkillers. In summary, there are two nerves integral to resolving pain in the body – the OUCH nerve, and the GPS nerve.
So why does this nerve become faulty? Science has found several possibilities:
Possibility #1 – An old injury was never provided the opportunity to heal, most often due to continuous demands placed on it after the injury occurred. A majority of work injuries that we treat fit under this area because of this one driver.
Possibility #2 – The experience of chronic fatigue. This tells us that the body does not have the energy resources to maintain normal function, or to repair and restore injured areas.
Possibility #3 – This is a commonly missed aggravator, called atmospheric pressure changes. In other words, individuals who experience this can tell you the weather better than the weatherman can because of how sensitive their bodies are. This sensitivity often re-aggravates and extends the duration of the inflammation and pain cycle.
Now, I found one underlying driver in most patients that I’ve seen over the past 19 years. That one factor is chronic stress. More specifically, it is called a sympathetically maintained stress response. This simply means it is fueled by a combination of physical, biochemical and emotional stress. Think of it like a tsunami and an earthquake that hit at the same time, and now you continue to experience the waves and aftershocks long after the immediate stressor is gone.
To make matters worse, as you continue to get hits of emotional stress from life demands and chemical stress from say, eating the wrong foods, it reactivates those waves and aftershocks. When this happens, the system becomes faulty simply due to excessive bombarding demands going beyond the body’s ability to recover. The body can’t catch up! So why does this cause such a problem? Because the body was not meant to manage long-term stress.
The end product is a system that gets overloaded and faulty. Being faulty, there is no clear signal telling the brain to release these powerful painkillers.
The key to turning on this system is to reboot and re-activate the faulty nerve. A medical modality that is being utilized more and more for THIS specific reason called is biomedical acupuncture. This is because through the use of acupuncture, we are reactivating the faulty GPS nerve. This then turns on the brain to begin releasing these powerful painkillers.
A majority of chronic pain cases that are referred to our center from medical doctors do not have a clear structural cause. There was an initial injury, but most often we see that the magnitude and chronicity of symptoms are NOT consistent with the condition. In other words, the patient shouldn’t still be having pain! When this is the case, the patient is often suffering from what we call neuropathic pain. This means that the problem is in the nerve or nervous system and there is really nothing pushing on the nerve itself.
Interestingly, the body can lock into a chronic pattern of pain where these nerves keep firing without any direct trauma. This type of looping pain is in fact responsible for most chronic pain that patients experience. This is why after many tests, you’re told that they do not know exactly why the pain is still there.
This is where biomedical acupuncture may be an excellent option. Why? Because it is both diagnostic and therapeutic. This means that within a short course of treatment (normally within 6-12 treatments), we not only begin to see changes, but also more importantly we learn if your body will respond and do well with further treatment.
If you would like to find out more about how we can assist you with your specific health concerns through the use of biomedical acupuncture along with your current health care safely and effectively, contact our office at (619) 287-4005 to schedule a free consultation. We will answer any questions you have to find out if and how we can help you with your healthcare needs.