2 Little Known Triggers for Pain

Pain can be triggered by many factors. Some of the better known physical causes include:

• Injury - acute or repetitive stress
• Accident or traumatic incident
• Sedentary lifestyle
• Your job / occupation

But there's 2 other triggers for pain that are less well known:

• Nervous system
• Immune system

These are often involved in non-specific back pain, chronic pain, persistent muscle tension, migraines, autoimmunity, and conditions like fibromyalgia or polymyalgia.

Physical therapy, such as physiotherapy, is often less effective at helping people find relief from these types of pain conditions. Current medical treatments usually involve pumping patients full of powerful corticosteroid drugs whenever they experience a flare up of symptoms. 

Ok, let's dive into these pain triggers a little more.....

1) Injury - Acute / Repetitive Stress

An injury can seem sudden. For example, you hurt your back lifting a heavy barbell or your knee swells up after a run. However, most injuries result from training errors - typically 'too much / too soon / too much' - which overloads the tissue beyond it's current capacity.

Another factor in injuries is under-recovering - not allowing the body enough time to repair, regenerate and adapt to the training loads imposed. This includes sleep duration and quality!

Repetitive stress injuries are pretty self explanatory - doing the same movements in the same way over and over again. This eventually fatigues the tissues involved and sends them into structural overload and failure.

2) Accident or Traumatic Incident

Again this is pretty obvious. A road traffic accident, a fall, football tackle etc can lead to injury and pain.

There's not much you can do to avoid these incidents, other than risk assessment and management, using any recommended safety equipment for the activity.

3) Sedentary Lifestyle

A sedentary lifestyle can trigger pain for many reasons. including:

• Deconditioning the body so muscles lack strength and endurance
• Changing our natural posture from upright to seated so muscles stop working as Nature designed
• Immobilising the pelvis, spine and ribs - easy mobility and coordination of these structure is essential for fluid, pain-free movement
• Lack of movement reduces the brain's sensory awareness and motor control of the body

4) Your Job / Occupation

Certain jobs or types of occupation can lead to persistent muscle tension, stiffness and pain. Do you do any of these jobs?

• Cleaner
• Dentist / dental hygienist
• Massage therapist
• Chiropodist
• Office / computer worker
• Hairdresser

If you do, you're in good company. Several people attend my Stretch and Pilates classes to reverse the effects these types of jobs have on their bodies.

These physical triggers for pain are fairly well known, and they can respond well to traditional physical therapy, such as physiotherapy, osteopathy or massage.

But the longer pain and muscle tension persists, the less effective these conventional treatment methods tend to be.

The reason is there are 2 other triggers for pain that are less well known:

• Nervous system
• Immune system

The neuro-immuno-physiological factors in pain are often overlooked when it comes to issues like chronic pain, non-specific back pain, persistent muscle tension, fibromyalgia, polymyalgia and autoimmunity.

These types of pain are less well served by current, conventional physical therapies and medicine. Typically therapists and doctors will do some tests, and depending on the results, prescribe certain exercises or drugs to manage the symptoms. 

However, there's no attempt to explore the underlying drivers of the pain.

An example is administering non-steroidal anti-inflammatories for back pain or powerful corticosteroid drugs for fibromyalgia. This helps you to feel better, but does nothing to address WHY you have inflammation in your body. Therefore it's likely that you'll have further flare ups of pain.

This is why there's no single exercise that'll magically make your pain disappear, and cookie cutter protocols don't work in the same way for everyone.

Making your core stronger won't make your back pain go away.

Stretches and foam rolling won't prevent injury or change how muscles behave long-term.

Tick box treatment methods are equally as effective at healing as time and patience.

Takeaway

If you have pain or muscle tension that's not going away or keeps recurring, you need to explore ALL drivers for pain:

• Physical = Injury / Accident or trauma / Lifestyle / Occupation
• Nervous system
• Immune system

Conventional tick box, cookie cutter and 'one exercise will fix everything' approaches won't cut it.

Finding long-term relief from pain so you can move pain-free again requires a multi-factor, personalised approach to address all these factors, such as The Befriend Your Body (BYB) Method.

NEXT STEPS

• Get my expert insights on a specific injury or pain problem that you're struggling with in a 15 mins clarity call. This will help you move forwards to feeling better. Complete the interest form HERE and I'll send you a link to book your call with me.
• Book into a Stretch or Pilates class with me - these are a good introduction to The Befriend Your Body (BYB) Method (mindful movement) for pain relief.
• Come to a pop-up class - a different theme each month, open to everyone, run at a peaceful retreat venue, small group. See the class schedule HERE
• Subscribe HERE to receive "The Movement Chronicle", a weekly e-newsletter delivering mobility and pain reduction tips directly into your inbox every Monday morning,

You can connect with me through any of these channels:

• Email at norma@unicornhealthandfitness.com
• DM me on Facebook Messenger https://www.facebook.com/norma.pearsonfitness
• WhatsApp message to 07801 867361.