Flare-Ups, Frustration and Healing: Why Chronic Pain Isn’t a Straight Line (And That’s OK)
Many of our patients who come into see us at Oakfield Chiropractic have been struggling with complaints for a long time. This can be exhausting! Especially if it occurring daily and getting worse over time. Unlike acute injuries, such as twisting your ankle or pulling your back lifting something, chronic pain can stick around for months, or even years. This pain doesn’t just affect your body, but it can change the way your brain processes and interprets pain, leading to a change in how you experience everyday life.
Pain Doesn’t Just Occur at a Site in Your Body – Pain is in the Brain Too
Pain, simply put, is your body’s alarm system. When you injure yourself, nerves from that area send danger signals up to the brain, which interprets them as pain. In chronic pain cases, the system that sends the signals becomes overprotective.
- The nervous system can become Hypersensitive – Pain signals are sent from the injury site, even when the original injury has healed.
- The brain learns to expect/anticipate pain, which makes previously harmless movements or activities in a person’s day-to-day life, feel threatening.
- This can sometimes lead to a “pain loop”, in which a person’s fear of pain reduces their movement, leading to a weakening of the body, which then fuels more pain.
In other words: with chronic pain, the “alarm” keeps ringing long after the problem has occurred and the threshold before pain would occur is lowered, making the pain signals easier to trigger to the brain.
So How Does Chronic Pain Affect My Daily Life?
Chronic pain is usually classified as persistent pain that has lasted longer than three months, or beyond the expected timeframe of the natural healing process.
Patients with chronic pain who come into see us at Oakfield Chiropractic usually describe more than just pain or discomfort. They typically report to us:
- Disturbed sleep and lower levels of energy (either due to the lack of sleep, persistent pain levels, or both).
- Can affect their levels of concentration and level of mental presence at work, at home, when trying to relax or with loved-ones (persistent pain can be mentally draining, have you noticed your level of patience for annoying things being lower when you have persistent pain?)
- Impact on mood, increasing levels of anxiety or depression (patients report the longer an issue has been going on, they tend to become concerned about what is causing their problem and they get down, not being able to do the things they want to do)
- Limited activity levels, exercise, or even social life (patients with persistent pain usually end up coming in because they can’t do the things they want to do. Whether that be their favourite sports, being able to lift their children or stand for long periods of time at their favourite music gig)
Just remember – the pain “isn’t all in your head!” – but the brain and nervous system play a bigger role in how you may be experiencing your pain.
So, How Long Does it Take to Get Better? Answer – It’s Not Always Linear
One of the most asked questions that patients ask us is how long their complaint will take to recover. This is the frustrating aspect of chronic pain, that the recovery is never usually a straight line. Some days, you will feel great, able to do the majority of what you had been struggling with before, and other days will feel like a setback. This can be a very deflating and disappointing feeling, but do remember, this is completely normal. The things we recommend here at Oakfield Chiropractic, when this does happen are:
- Pain flare-ups don’t necessarily mean MORE damage. Especially if you can’t correlate a specific movement or event that triggered the increase in pain.
- Progress is often measured in FUCNTIONAL changes (“I can bend further, walk further, lift heavier than I could last week.”), rather than just pain levels.
- It’s really common for patients to improve gradually with a “two steps forward, one step back”
The Chiropractors at Oakfield Expect and understand patient’s frustration with this journey and use a phased care plan, to make this transition along this non-linear recovery as smooth as possible.
So How Can Chiropractic Help Me?
Chiropractic care can be an important aspect of patients managing their chronic pain. We do this by using:
- Manual Therapy:
Gentle joint adjustments and sort tissue techniques can:
- Improve the mobility of joints and reduce stiffness.
- Calm down irritation in the nervous system (make those alarm signals a little quieter)
- Provide pain relief that makes movements easier for you
- Exercise and Movement
Movement is medicine for chronic pain:
- Exercise will help rebuild strength and flexibility in your body, that hasn’t moved as it wants to for an extended period of time.
- Help retrain the nervous system – This helps the brain recognise which movements are now safe to perform and will not cause further injury.
- Support long-term resilience, as well as reduce sensitivity
- Re-build confidence for the patient to tackle things they were once afraid to do
- Education and Support:
- When patients understand how their pain works, this can be very powerful. There is understanding of what is happening within their body and therefore, their situation becomes more tangible. It’s also good for patients to understand that pain does not equal damage, leading to more confidence in rebuilding activity, step by step.
Putting it Simply – Or if You’ve Just Scrolled to the Bottom
Chronic pain isn’t just about joints or muscles – it’s about how the entire nervous system responds. This is why it’s important that care addresses both the short-term pain relief and long-term re-training of the body and brain.
At Oakfield Chiropractic, our approach combines hands-on care, exercise, and education to ensure people living with chronic pain towards a more active and fulfilling life.
If you’ve been living with persistent pain and want a personalised plan to get you better, respecting the ups and down of recovery, we’re here to help! To book your consult today, click here.
