Rewire Your Pain Brain
Research has shown that neural networks in our brain that create pain, sometimes becoming chronic pain, may be rewired with positivity and messages of safety.
One of the newest methods to treat all types of chronic pain, that is pain that persists when injury has healed, or the cause cannot be identified is understanding and using neuroplasticity.
This is recognising and learning about neural networks in the brain, how they can be rewired, like the electrical wiring in an old house that needs to be upgraded.
Rewiring a Neural Network
First let me explain what a neural network is. An example of a neural network is that annoying jingle you hear on the TV advert. The advert itself is long gone and forgotten but the jingle is still going round and round in your head.
Effectively the music and the words have been learned by your brain and the neurons have connected to form a neural network or one could say a memory of that annoying Jingle.
More concerning can be the messages we may send to ourselves. Negative messages and thoughts seem particularly easy to pick up, file away and remember.
Neural Networks of Fear and Chronic Pain
Chronic pain, in any of its forms from back pain, leg pain or abdominal pain affects how we move. We have learned from the first painful experience that it's better to stay still - to not move.
Consequently, when a part of our body hurts and continues to hurt we become afraid to move.
Just like the jingle, we learn “Don't move it'll hurt”.
Why Pain is in Your Brain
We learned about pain at a very early age: -
-
When we ran into something,
-
Or we fell and cut our knee.
Now if you watch a small child’s reaction to an injury, they can be quite different. Two things are important to what may happen during the next five minutes.
Firstly, the reaction can depend on the child's personality.
Effectively how they view the world and react to it. One child may just get up and keep running and laughing whereas another child may be terrified and almost impossible to comfort.
Secondly, is the reaction of their parent.
Perhaps, compassionate reassurance that there's no damage done. Then distract them with something else.
Alternatively, the parent’s reaction maybe to be over compassionate to the extent that the child itself gets worried. Hence bringing in the fear and hurt that I've mentioned in the ‘don’t move it hurts’ above.
Physical Pain Messages Come from the Brain
I hope you're sitting comfortably because this is very important to understand especially if you are suffering with chronic pain.
Your chronic pain is very real and if you move it will hurt.
But the hurt that you feel is in fact a feeling, a neural message, a warning. Don't move as it's going to hurt!
Rewire your Anxious Brain
In my practice I find a considerable number of my chronic pain clients are also experiencing anxiety.
This anxiety is totally understandable.
Unfortunately, many people live with this anxiety about their future with chronic pain in their day-to-day living, without sharing it with family or friends.
One of my clients, a woman in her 40’s had been living with trigeminal pain for over 12 years but she had been putting on the “I'm fine” for all of that time.
New Treatment Ideas for Chronic Pain
Now I'm sure some of you are saying that no doctor or specialist has mentioned neural networks to you. However, this is going to have to change because with the advent of functional MRI's we can recognize parts of the brain that effectively light up when we feel pain.
In addition, research has shown that physical pain and also just thinking of the physical pain - remember that neural network I mentioned above - lights up the same areas of our brain.
In conclusion I'd just like to clarify some of the points that I've introduced you to on this page. In our brain we have billions or trillions of neurons, nerves that carry messages.
These neurons can connect with each other to form what is called a neural network If you like think of the aeroplanes that fly across the globe and all their interconnections.
These neural networks in your brain can effectively form a memory often carrying danger signals that we are totally unaware of, and our body will interpret these danger signals as pain.
These signals can get severely out of whack and send pain signals just like the small child who fell over, but they are amplified to such an extent that we are left living in chronic pain.
I invite you to spend time on this page.
Begin to understand how our brain becomes rewired.
Why the brain keeps replaying those pain signals that should have been forgotten months or even years ago.
Rewiring your brain to relief pain involves:-
-
Compassion for yourself,
-
Positive messages,
-
Messages of safety,
-
Time for change to happen
-
Self responsibility for your pain care
Natural Pain Solutions Information & Education
You will find on this website stories to read, both to educate and to reassure you that chronic pain in all its forms, back pain, leg pain, tough diagnosis such as fibromyalgia or irritable bowel syndrome have new emerging ideas and research.
All may have elements of neural circuits and hence need some rewiring, some pain brain rewiring.