Your Nervous System Can Turn Up Your Pain Without a New Injury
Your pain can get worse even when you haven’t injured anything new.
Sounds odd, strange, especially when you wake up feeling like somebody worked you over in your sleep.
Yesterday, you could bend down without much trouble. Today, you’re holding onto the bathroom counter just to put your socks on. So now you’re trying to figure out what you did wrong.
Maybe you overdid something yesterday. Maybe there’s an injury that needs attention. Have you every thought there’s another possibility people don’t always consider?
Your nervous system may be responding more strongly to pain.
Your pain has a volume control.
Your brain and spinal cord are constantly processing information from your body. Part of that job involves adjusting how sensitive you are to pain.
Think about the volume on your television. You can turn it up without changing what’s playing.
Something similar can happen with pain. Your nervous system can become more sensitive, making a movement feel worse than it did before. That’s why I don’t want people assuming that more pain automatically means more damage.
Sometimes it does. Sometimes the sensitivity has changed. We have to look at what’s actually happening.
I understand this from personal experience, too. After suffering a heat stroke in 2014, the way I experienced pain changed, my brain changed. It's something I still deal with today. I've even had providers question whether I was faking. Imagine being on a stretcher, genuinely hurting, and someone deciding you couldn't possibly be in that much pain because you weren't reacting the way they expected.
It's one of the reasons I don't assume I know how much someone is hurting just by looking at them. Pain can be complicated, and sometimes what someone is experiencing doesn't match what we expect to see.
What does this have to do with chiropractic?
Well, actually... A LOT!
When performing a chiropractic adjustment, I’m applying a specific mechanical input to the joints and surrounding tissues. Your sensory receptors pick up that information, and your nervous system processes it.
Researchers have been studying how spinal manipulation affects pain sensitivity. Studies have found positive changes in how people respond to painful pressure after an adjustment. We also know spinal manipulation can help people dealing with lower back pain, neck pain, digestion, and pain in many other places too.
This is one reason WE need to understand what’s happening beyond the area that hurts; and that’s where the conversation usually gets juicy.
How much of your life have you started working around your pain?
Really think about that question.
Maybe you’ve started taking the elevator because your knees bother you. You put off cleaning the house because you know your back will be paying for it later.
You still go to work. You handle your responsibilities. When somebody asks how you’re doing, you tell them you’re fine. Look at how much you’re doing just to get through an ordinary day.
At Well With Doc, we call this Capacity Drift™. It’s the slow conversion of adaptability into effort.
Things you used to do without thinking now require planning. You’re making little adjustments to your routine, and after a while, you barely notice you’re doing it.
That’s what concerning, because you can get so used to working around pain that you stop recognizing how much it’s taking from you. Being able to push through your day doesn’t necessarily mean you’re recovering well afterward.
Pay attention to this next time your pain flares up.
The next time your pain flares up, pay attention to more than how badly it hurts.
What have you started avoiding because of it?
How much more effort does your usual routine take now?
Those answers are clues! New or worsening symptoms still deserve a proper examination, but understanding these patterns can help us make better decisions about care.
I want you feeling better, of course. I also want you getting back to the things you’ve slowly stopped doing.
Sometimes the biggest change isn’t how much pain you’re feeling, but how much of your life you’ve rearranged to live with it.
Comments