If you’re currently experiencing pain, or you know someone who is in pain then you will be excited to know that there’s a revolution happening in how we understand pain.
A little of my own story with Chronic Pain
After many, many years of living in CHRONIC PAIN which was destroying my life, I was given a diagnosis of Fibromyalgia. I searched for answers and for me medication wasn’t the answer. The drugs I was prescribed came with greater side effects and they didn’t even take the edge off, they just make me feel more unwell and drugged. I know this is not the case for everyone, this is not medical advice, it is personal experience. I set off on a journey to find a way back to health and this started with looking at my diet. When we learn that everything we eat and drink is information, it really helps you make healthy more informed choices. I thought I ate well and I didn’t drink much alcohol, so I thought I was doing ok but there was lots of improvements I could make to help myself.
Training as Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapist was a turning point in understanding pain and within this I had the opportunity to learn the new paradigm of Pain Management and Pain Science. The essence of cranial work is that you touch people and they change. After years of being in pain it can be hopeful to feel something different and this is life changing, especially if we have been in pain so long, we’ve forgotten what it’s like not to be in pain! Cranial Sacral is gentle touch and after years of painful physiotherapy which left me worse than I started this was a welcome experience.
The New Paradigm of Pain Management
The new paradigm of Pain Science teaches us that all pain as a purpose, that pain is at a very fundamental level all about your brain’s assessment of safety. Our brains are over-protective for too many things. Did you know 90% of clinical pain is protective pain? So, in essence our pain protection system is acting like an alarm system in an effort to keep us safe!
A short-term goal of pain is to protect you from damage or potential tissue damage. Your brain has learned this and may generate a pain event and stop you from doing anything to make the pain worse and as our brains are much too over protective, we need to get ‘under the alarm system.’ Anything we can do to feel safe with facilitate this process. If your brain thinks your safe, the pain goes down. Pain is complex so we need to approach this from a whole human being perspective. Pain is not just ‘issues in our tissues’, in fact it’s not an accurate measure of tissue health. Pain is biological, psychological and social and we need to address all of this, which is why I work with you as a whole person.
The good news is that we can unlearn the pain habit. We can train our nervous system to respond differently to the information that’s coming in. Working creatively, we can find ways to manage and significantly reduce pain.
SARAH’S* STORY
*Not clients real name
Sarah came for a craniosacral practice session to help me out whilst I was a student. She had had 3 car accidents in the past 2 years. As a result of these accidents she was experiencing a lot of back pain. This pain made it difficult to drive and also to sit in her chair in work. She was also suffering from anxiety after these accidents and was also fed up with brain fog.
After 1 treatment this is the message I got from Sarah
For more information on Pain and Pain Management, check out my Blog IT’S TIME TO RETHINK PAIN!
