Where Does The Pain Come From?

Pain in the body is actually a subjective experience. This means that everyone's experience is different because we interpret the signals from the body based on our culture, experiences, and personality. Having said that, there are many universal experiences we all agree are painful to some degree. This is because the body is reacting to some type of stimulus that it recognizes as abnormal and through chemical and electrical lines of communication it tells the brain "Hey this is not normal".

In very simplistic terms I describe most of these "not normal" signals as occuring from chemical or mechanical sources. While it is easiest to describe these things as occuring on opposite ends of a spectrum the reality is all situations occur with some component of both sources.

For example, if you slam your hand in a car door, you have created mechanical trauma to the tissues of the hand which stimulates nerve endings in these tissues which send information to the brain. This mechanical trauma also causes cells within these tissues to break and chemical substances in and outside the cells are now in "not normal" places. This also results in a relay of information to the brain . Both of these mechanisms result in body reactions involving several different systems to start repair, prevent infection, and protect you and the tissues from further harm. Your subjective interpretation of these signals also influences the systems response.

In musculoskeletal medicine we find several interesting facts about pain. Two of which are especially important for patients to know. Pain is a liar. the location of the symptoms is quite often an unreliable indicator of the source dysfunction. Pain is often occurs from the tissues compensating for the dysfunction and not the dysfunction itself.

For more information on this topic email us, post a question on our blog, or schedule and appointment to discuss your specific problems