Chronic Pain – Sunlight in Winter

I’ve been writing about some heavy stuff recently, so I thought it would be a good time to share something that makes me feel really hopeful:

Christopher deCharms is a neuroscientist and entrepreneur who, along with other prominent researchers such as Dr. Sean Mackey, is paving the way towards using brain imaging to study and treat chronic pain.

deCharms founded a company, Omneuron, which has developed something called rtfMRI, or “real-time functional MRI.”

In studies of chronic pain patients, this new technology allows researchers to see exactly which area’s of a patient’s brain are the most active, and how this activity can change from moment to moment, depending on what the patient is instructed to do.

We know that the brains and nervous systems of chronic pain sufferers function differently from people who aren’t in pain– now this technology allows us to see how.

deCharms explains,

There have (historically) been three ways to try to impact the brain: the therapist’s couch, pills and the knife. This is a fourth alternative that you are soon going to have.

We all know that as we form thoughts, they form deep channels in our minds and in our brains. Chronic pain is an example. If you burn yourself, you pull your hand away. But if you’re still in pain in six months’ or six years’ time, it’s because these circuits are producing pain that’s no longer helping you.

If we can look at the activation in the brain that’s producing the pain, we can form 3D models and watch in real time the brain process information, and then we can select the areas that produce the pain.

Just as there are parts of the brain which can produce the experience of pain, there are also parts of the brain which can “turn down the volume” on pain, so to speak.

There are a few mechanisms by which the brain can inhibit pain signals. One powerful way is through the production of our own endogenous opiates– chemicals which our own brain produces to block pain. (These chemicals are what opiate medications such as Percoset and Oxycontin are trying to mimic).

Omneuron is researching ways which patients can learn to “turn up the volume” on the parts of their brain which inhibit the sending of pain signals.

As deCharms explains in this additional interview:

There is a built-in dial in the brain, that, when you turn it up… pain goes away. So we hope that when we can teach people to control these systems, to control this dial in the brain, they can make the brain go down.

He explains that many of his patients report feeling empowered simply by seeing images of the pain activity in their brains on the screen. For so long, they had felt as though the people in their lives didn’t believe them about how much pain they were in, and there, on the screen, was proof.

***

I really find this topic to be so fascinating, not to mention inspiring.

If you’d like to know more, I actually have a whole section within my “Resources” page on how fMRI is being used to study and treat chronic pain. (I have links to a bunch more articles, as well as some interesting talks by other prominent researchers).

Hope you’ll check it out!

Central Sensitization, Chronic Pain, Fibromyalgia, Nervous System, Pain Science

Central Sensitivity Syndromes

May 22, 2017June 13, 2017 sunlight in winter

A really important concept for anyone struggling with chronic pain, fibromyalgia, or other chronic health conditions is the idea of “central sensitivity syndromes” (CSS for short).

The term refers to any kind of condition that can be caused by a change in the way the nervous system processes pain (a process known as central sensitization).

I have described central sensitization in more detail in other posts. (Here, I will just say that sometimes, the nervous system can begin to function differently after physical injury or trauma. Basically, the more chances our nervous system has to “practice” sending pain signals, the better it gets at it).

Central sensitization is why you can still have pain after an injury is healed. Your tissues are no longer damaged, but your nervous system has not forgotten the “memory” of the pain.

So… how does this happen? What kinds of injuries or traumas are necessary to cause it? And what symptoms can it cause?

The answer to is: central sensitization can happen in many different ways, and sometimes the things that trigger it don’t have to be very “severe.” And there can be a wide range of symptoms, in different parts of the body. It can be different for each individual person, depending on genetic makeup, co-existing health conditions, psychology, and, of course, the event that triggered it.

This is why the term “central sensitivity syndromes” is so helpful– there are so many health conditions, which on the surface might seem very different, yet all have central sensitization as their root cause.

***

To my knowledge, the term was first coined by physician and researcher Muhummad Yunus, who, along with his colleagues, conducted an important 1981 study linking fibromyalgia to other health conditions caused by nervous system sensitization.

Since then. Dr. Yunus has contributed to a really impressive list of studies establishing central sensitization as the likely cause of a wide range of conditions, including:

fibromyalgia
irritable bowel syndrome
temporomandibular disorder (TMJ)
restless legs syndrome
chronic fatigue syndrome
complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS)
chronic pelvic pain
migraine

Central sensitization can create different types of symptoms, from one person to another, in different parts of the body. This one common cause can have many different manifestations.

Additionally, as Dr. Yunus writes, central sensitization can occur when someone has another health condition which creates pain and stresses their nervous system. Central sensitization can be a resulting secondary factor in conditions such as:

rheumatoid arthritis
systemic lupus
ankylosing spondylitis
osteoarthritis
diabetes mellitus
inflammatory bowel disease

Basically, anything that stresses your nervous system out and gives it a chance to practice sending those pain signals can cause it to become better at sending those pain signals. So even if central sensitization isn’t the primary cause of your illness, over time it can become a secondary factor.

***

The good news, however, is that the effects of central sensitization don’t have to be permanent. It can also get better.

That’s what my blog is all about– helping people find out about the ways I, personally, have managed to reduce the effect central sensitization has upon my life, as well as raising awareness about new avenues of research.

What helped me the most is an approach to physical therapy known as pain neurophysiology education. However, there are other forms of treatment out there, including medications some people have found to be effective for the effects of central sensitization.

***

I’m going to write more on central sensitization and its treatment, as well as the work of Dr. Muhammad Yunus, in the future.

I hope this post was helpful for you, and that you stay tuned!

Chronic Pain, Creative Writing, eating disorders, Favorites, My Story, psychology

Fighting a health issue without judgement, for the first time

April 24, 2017April 25, 2017 sunlight in winter

They say one of the worst things a blogger can do is to begin all your posts with an explanation of why it’s been so long since your last post.

Normally I’m able to stop myself from doing this, but I’m going to let myself do it this time, since it’s actually relevant to what I want to say.

The reason I haven’t been on here in so long is I had a crazy past few months dealing with the most insane dust and mold allergies.

I had been living in a super old 1700’s farmhouse that had not been well-maintained. A good friend had been living there for years and needed a roommate, and the rent was super low. So I moved in with him, following my return from California.

I had never really had significant allergies before, beyond suffering from pollen one or two weeks out of the year.

But this winter, it came out of nowhere. I thought I was sick at first, and had to take antibiotics for a sinus infection, but even once that was treated, some of my symptoms never went away.

Thankfully, my primary care physician referred me to an allergist (even though I was convinced I wasn’t the kind of person who had allergies) and sure enough, I tested positive for dust and mold allergies.

By then, things had gotten so bad that I could barely sleep– I was so congested it was hard to breathe. I’d wake up feeling like I couldn’t get enough air. My sleep schedule got all messed up, and I started relying on things like Benadryl and Nyquil, which of course left me exhausted the next day. And during the day, dealing with my symptoms felt like a full-time job.

In the midst of all this, I realized I had to find a new place to live– a pretty intense and financially-involved decision to make when you know you’re not in your right mind.

Somehow it worked out. It took another month, but I finally ended up moving, and am gradually doing better (my allergy doctor said it might take a few weeks).

I’m a little upset at how much time I lost on this problem– really, I wasn’t able to be productive for much of the winter, until things finally came to a head in March.

However, if I look back, I can see that some good came out of this, in a way.

This was really the first time I experienced a health issue and pursued treatment on it without stopping to judge myself, or the way I was handling it.

***

I mentioned in a previous post that, in the past few years, I came to realize that many of the same issues that contributed to my eating disorder were also affecting the way I handled my health issues.

Specifically, in an unconscious way, I was afraid to devote too much time or effort to “fixing” something with my body, because I was afraid it would trigger the same obsession that caused me to starve myself while running 40+ miles a week, until I eventually developed compartment syndrome.

With issues such as my chronic pain, and then my SI joint issues, I only tried to fix the problem to a certain extent. I’d go see a specialist, I’d go to PT, I’d do my exercises. But then I wanted to stop, be a normal girl, focus on other things.

I finally identified this pattern 5 years into my SI joint problem. I realized, you know what, this problem has completely taken over my life anyway. It doesn’t really make sense to try to “limit” the time I spend trying to fix it, because things are so limited for me right now anyway.

So I gave myself permission to do whatever it took, and started my SI joint blog as a way to keep track of the things I researched. And it was during my research for this blog that I first came across another patient saying constant chiropractor adjustments made her worse. That planted the seed in my mind, and I ultimately came to realize that the same was true for me as well.

With my allergy stuff… I got right to it. I scheduled an allergy test, and when the first office of the sprawling medical practice couldn’t fit me in for over 6 weeks, I called around until I found an opening in 2 weeks. I made all the lifestyle changes my doctor recommended, and then some. And then I moved.

Of course, it was a little easier to proceed without judgement from others in the context of allergies. After all, we don’t suspect people of “making up” allergies for some kind of gain. You can’t get workers comp for it, and there aren’t any super fun drugs.

But even so, I felt that the biggest difference this time around was in my mind.

I had it in my head that I was a “normal” person, experiencing a problem, and I did what it took to get better. I didn’t waste time on “whys” or “what ifs.” I didn’t ask if I deserved to get better, or worry about what the doctors might think of me. I simply had a problem, and I did what it took to find a solution.

When I first started having chronic pain at nineteen, I thought I deserved it… I’d starved and abused my body, even though I should have known better, and that the pain and the compartment syndrome and maybe even my SI joint problems were the price I had to pay.

Now, at age 32, I never felt that way about my allergies on any level… I just saw them as a crazy fluke of biology, a random stroke of unfortunate genetic luck that was completely not my fault.

So… it’s interesting to feel this way.

Does anyone out there know what I mean?

Have you ever come to realize that your own negative beliefs and fears about yourself were affecting the way you pursued treatment?

Don’t let them. Believe in yourself– believe that you are normal, and that answers are out there. Because they are.

Central Sensitization, Chronic Pain, Favorites, Fibromyalgia, Nervous System, Pain Neurophysiology Education, Pain Science

How Clifford Woolf discovered central sensitization (and why you shouldn’t blame yourself for chronic pain)

March 13, 2017April 27, 2017 sunlight in winter

You’ve probably noticed that my blog is all about central sensitization— the process through which the central nervous system can change over time and become more sensitive to pain.

Personally, I find learning about central sensitization to be empowering. I spent years trying to find an answer for the pain and other symptoms I felt, only to be told by various medical professionals that my problems were in my head, the possible result of depression or anxiety.

I knew, deep down, that this just wasn’t true. It’s not that I was unwilling to believe that mental health factors could play a role. But it just didn’t resonate. I didn’t feel anxious or depressed. I felt like I was in pain, and wanted it to stop.

That’s why, when I first heard the phrase central sensitization and looked up what it meant, I was so struck. Because there was a way to explain why my nervous system was acting funny, and causing me to feel things other people didn’t feel, that wasn’t based on my mental health.

So. How do we know about central sensitization?

A neuroscientist named Clifford Woolf discovered the process of central sensitization back in the early 1980’s. In 1983, he published a well-known and often-cited letter to the respected scientific journal Nature outlining his theory, entitled “Evidence for a central component of post-injury pain hypersensitivity.”

Although the scientific community didn’t quite accept Woolf’s ideas right away, ultimately he ended up sparking a new wave of research, and his theory of central sensitization is generally accepted today (although much more work still needs to be done).

Basically Woolf ended up discovering central sensitization more or less by accident, in the process of researching something else.

(Now, I’m not a huge fan of animal research, so I don’t love what I’m about to describe to you. But I am grateful for the results, so for the sake of understanding, here we go).

Woolf was studying the “withdrawal reflex” that caused the rats to jerk their paws away from a painful stimulus. He tested them over and over again, over the course of a day, and he noticed that he started to get different results at the end of the day.

After a long day of testing, the same rats were much jumpier. It became much easier to trigger their withdrawal reflex. They would jerk their paws away even at things that shouldn’t have been painful, or wouldn’t have caused them to react that way at the start of the day.

Woolf realized he was seeing completely different behavior in the same rats, and under the exact same conditions. Only one thing had changed: their nervous systems had been “practicing” the withdrawal reflex all day long, and were now responding to stimuli differently. He hypothesized that somehow, the central nervous system had changed to become more responsive to pain, after exposure to repeated stress.

Woolf’s theory was pretty revolutionary at the time. Generally speaking, the scientific community believed the central nervous system always processed pain the exact same way, like a simple machine performing the same task over and over. Woolf’s discovery turned all of that on its head, by suggesting that actually, the central nervous system can be changed and shaped by its experiences.

His ideas were not widely accepted right away, but his work, along with that of others such as Muhammad Yunus, has now formed the basis for a wide body of research on central sensitization and chronic pain that’s going on today.

***

We do still have a long way to go. Much more research is needed, not to mention new treatments to be based on that research.

However, the reason I wanted to go into detail and describe the rat experiment for you guys is this:

If you have chronic pain/fibromyalgia, people are going to tell you it’s in your head. Unfortunately, even sometimes people who have a passing understanding of central sensitization will imply tell you it’s in your head. In my experience, people can understand the concept of the nervous system working differently in principle, yet still think it must somehow be related to mental health.

So this is what I want you to know: central sensitization happens in rats.

Your thoughts, beliefs, and fears about pain, and your mood– those can all play a role in your experience of central sensitization/chronic pain.

But those things don’t cause central sensitization, any more than they did in the rats in Clifford Woolf’s lab.

Remember that the next time you feel someone isn’t taking you seriously. You can’t create your whole experience of pain by “overthinking” any more than a rat can overthink something.

In some ways, your nervous system is its own being. There are aspects of your nervous system which have way more in common with a rat nervous system than with your conscious, human mind. (I know, think about that! That’s evolution for ya).

So if you have chronic pain, don’t blame yourself. Don’t scold yourself for overthinking; don’t wonder if you’re crazy. Your body is just doing what it was always going to do, in response to whatever stress/pain/injury you experienced.

There are ways to move forward– promising ways, which I talk about on this blog.

But to me, the first step is to stop blaming yourself. You are okay. You didn’t cause your own central sensitization, any more than the rats caused what Clifford Woolf observed in the lab.

Chronic Pain, Neil Pearson, Nervous System, Pain Science, Quotes

Neil Pearson on the benefits of acute stress

March 6, 2017May 22, 2017 sunlight in winter

I recently discovered this super thought-provoking article article from Neil Pearson on the positive effects of acute stress on the body.

We normally think of stress in as the chronic, ongoing stress that continues for weeks on end, taking a toll on our body in the process. However, there are ways in which acute stress– that is, stress that only occurs during a short period of time, and then comes to an end– can actually benefit our bodies.

Neil writes,

If you want to make a muscle stronger, use it more. If you want to grow more tolerant of an irritating or bothersome sensation or experience, step up to it. Face it. In time, it will bother you less.

Try playing a string instrument for the first time, and feel the intense pain from pushing down strings with your fingertips. Keep doing it and your body will adapt, even creating a callous as a protective response, just like woodworkers and carpenters have on their hands and dancers have on their feet. In other words, when you stress your body, typically it responds by being better able to tolerate that stress next time.

We are built to survive. If there’s anything I learned in my health and science classes, it’s that our bodies are built to adapt specifically in response to the stresses we experience. If we continually perform a certain movement, the muscles that perform that movement will become stronger and better suited to the task.

If we perform a new task repeatedly, we will get better at it, until it becomes second nature. Our nervous systems will change, and our mental map of this task will become more developed.

Our bodies crave the kind of challenge that we can rise to. As Neil says, “acute stress is adaptive. This makes sense. When we exercise – challenging our physical abilities – we are not just improving our bodies physically; we are also making changes in our nervous systems.”

So. How can people with chronic pain and health issues use acute stress to our advantage?

Neil suggests that we harness our body’s ability to grow and change in ways that can benefit us. By teaching our bodies to do new things, we can give our nervous systems something to process other than pain, and try to jump-start that healthy, adaptive response.

If pain has been preventing you from exercising, Neil suggests:

Create acute stress while limiting the chronic stress of a flare-up: Make a daily plan to try an activity (or part of an activity) you want to do, but do it while you do your very best to keep your breathing even, your body tension low (only use as much as you need for the activity), and your stress level as low as possible.

So basically: we stress our bodies– our nervous systems, in particular, but also our muscles– in new ways. But we make sure we are in the right place, mentally and physiologically, while we do it, by proactively taking steps to keep our nervous systems from going into fight or flight mode.

There’s even more in Neil’s article. He talks about some of the positive effects of stress and exercise on the brain– how chronic pain can dim these effects, but how the techniques he suggest might present a way around that. Definitely check it out!

***

All this talk about the positive aspects of stress reminds me of health psychologist Kelly McGonigal’s excellent TED talk on “How to Make Stress Your Friend.” I’ve posted about it on my blog before, because it’s just really so great.

In this talk, McGonigal explains more about how stress can actually be a healthy motivator, seeking us to reach out to others and form social supports, and also spurring us on to create meaning in our lives. She also suggests that when we learn to view stress as a potentially positive factor, it can actually limit some of the negative effects we normally assume stress will have on us.

There’s so much more to say, but for now, I think I’ll let you check these two resources out! Happy reading/Youtubing– let me know what you think!

Central Sensitization, Chronic Pain, Favorites, Pain Neurophysiology Education, Pain Science, physical therapy, Treatment Approaches

The core message of pain neurophysiology education

March 2, 2017April 9, 2017 sunlight in winter

In the traditional model of physical therapy, the physical therapist prescribes stretches and exercises for the patient in order to improve function in one part of his or her body.

For example, if you have back pain, your PT will probably give you strengthening exercises to build up the muscles in your back and your core. If you have a knee injury, she’ll probably give you exercises to strengthen the muscles around the knee. This is why when most of us picture physical therapy, we imagine a patient grunting and sweating in a gym while the therapist looks on.

Pain neurophysiology education, however, draws from a different treatment model. This model is not based on the idea that the patient’s pain is coming an injury in one specific part of the body. Instead, it targets the sensitized nervous system directly as a source of pain.

The best way I can try to describe this is with graphs. The first graph below shows the way most people imagine pain to work. It also shows what most physical therapists are imagining when they prescribe stretches and exercises to improve a patient’s function:

You can see how, as the intensity of the injury diminishes (represented by the black line) the intensity of the pain diminishes as well (represented by the red line). This matches our experience of pain in most minor situations: getting a tooth drilled, pulling out a splinter. When the stimulus goes away, the pain goes away.

However, in situations involving chronic pain (generally defined as a painful experience that lasts for at least two to three months) the pain response works differently. Prolonged exposure to a painful stimulus actually produces changes in how a person’s nervous system works. It’s as if it sets off a feedback loop in which pain signals continue to be produced independently of the level of injury. For this reason, pain persists even after the initial injury has healed:

This second graph is an accurate representation of the state I was in when I was first introduced to pain neurophysiology education by my physical therapist Tim. I had a very high level of pain, but it was not correlated with a high level of injury in my body. This is why I hadn’t seen much improvement with any of my past physical therapists– my pain was coming from my nervous system, not from a specific injury in my body.

“If pain is the patient’s primary symptom, then pain relief should be the primary goal of treatment.”

I once read something along those lines in a blog comment section, and it really stuck with me.

Most physical therapy programs are designed to improve function of a certain part of the body. But when your pain isn’t coming from a problem with a certain part of your body, you can stretch and strengthen until the cows come home. It still won’t change your level of pain.

This is why none of the physical therapists I had seen before had been able to help me. They were all stuck on the idea that I needed to strengthen my back; strengthen my abs; strengthen everything. Of course, in some ways they were right. I wasn’t in the greatest shape.

But what Tim was able to identify is that there was a common denominator behind all of the pain I was experiencing in different parts of my body. Rather than looking at each one as unrelated, he recognized them as the symptoms of an overactive nervous system, or, as he taught me, body alarm system.

****

The goal of PNE is basically to help the patient’s body “remember” what an accurate pain response is supposed to be. There are a few ways to accomplish this, and I will be discussing them in upcoming posts. But the general goal of these various techniques is to help the patient’s nervous system get back in touch with with the reality of what’s happening in his or her body.

This graph shows the general goal of treatment:

The blue arrows represent the input you want to give to your nervous system. You’re basically saying to it, “Hey. Hey you. You are freaking out for no reason. This is reality, and it’s over there.”

The role of the physical therapist is basically to help the patient’s nervous system realize it doesn’t need to be on high alert all the time, and to slowly help it calm down. The idea is that as time goes on, the discrepancy between what the person’s nervous system feels and the actual level of dysfunction in his or her body will slowly shrink.

Now, to be honest, I’m not sure you will ever be able to fully reverse the process of central sensitization. It’s probably possible, but it hasn’t happened yet for me. That’s why I didn’t draw the red line going all the way back down to the bottom. An overactive pain response will always probably be somewhat of a factor for me, but it is a million times better for me now than it used to be. I’d much rather have the red line close to zero than soaring way up high, totally out of touch with my physical reality.

P.S. I adapted this post from Part 3 of my series on my own patient experience with pain neurophysiology education, entitled “How a physical therapist helped me through my lowest point.” I’m experimenting with different ways to present information, to find out what works best for people. Definitely check out that series if you’d like to know more! I would love to hear any comments or questions you might have.

Photo Credits:

Strength training equipment pic: colonnade
Balance training equipment pic: kbrookes

Central Sensitization, Chronic Pain, Creative Writing, Pain Neurophysiology Education, Pain Science, physical therapy

There is reason to hope.

February 14, 2017May 30, 2017 sunlight in winter

I saw a comment on Twitter today which really broke my heart, so I wanted to write this and make it clear:

If you are experiencing pain hypersensitivity (through central sensitization), there is every reason to hope.

If your nervous system has changed one way, it is possible to change it back.

It won’t be easy, and the way forward won’t always be obvious. But you can do it.

If you are experiencing central sensitization (as the result of an injury, a trauma, or other extreme physical or emotional experience) you have become more sensitive to pain than you used to be. Your body is using pain as a way to protect you, but it is treating you like you are made of glass. It is trying to protect you from everything.

Scientists are still researching the myriad of ways in which this happens. So far, they have identified multiple different mechanisms within the nervous system which can cause this extreme response to pain.

However, the good news is that we don’t need to know everything, yet, about how this process occurs to start treating it. (Although our treatments will only get better in the future, with more knowledge).

But you can start, right now, by learning what your body is capable of, and identifying the things your nervous system is warning you about that aren’t actually dangerous.

***

For me, it took a really smart and capable physical therapist who had studied with Neil Pearson. I expect that you will need a guide as well– someone who you trust, who can walk you through and help identify the ways it is safe for you to try to push through the pain.

Your best bet will be a physical therapist who has advanced knowledge of recent pain science. (A PT with this knowledge might not easy to find, at first, but luckily it’s becoming easier and easier. If you email me at sunlightinwinter12@hotmail.com, I can help you get started).

What you need is someone you trust, who you will believe when they tell you your body is capable of more.

Someone who is able to think flexibly and come up with more than one way to do an exercise, if you tell them the first way they gave you doesn’t seem to work.

Someone who will understand that it’s not only about what they learned about the body in school… it’s also about you, your nervous system, and your experience as a patient. Your nervous system has to be convinced that your body is safe, before it’s going to stop making things hurt.

Changing your beliefs about pain can have a direct impact on the pain you ultimately experience. When you truly learn and understand that your body is giving you pain in order to protect you, it stops being so threatening. This is known as changing your pain from the top down— from the brain to the body.

***

Of course– it’s equally important to keep working on your pain from the bottom up– from your body to the brain.

If you have chronic pain, or have suffered from some type of injury, your muscles are probably tightened into protective spasms. This, in turn, will make them weak, if it goes on for long enough.

So you have to work on the pain from both angles. You need to calm your nervous system down, and help it understand that not everything is dangerous. But you also need to give your body what it needs, and do everything that you can to help it function optimally.

***

Doing both of these things is a balancing act. Getting back in to shape is not about pushing through the pain. It is not a “no pain, no gain” mentality.

Instead, it is about being mindful. Being careful. (And again, ideally, having a trusted coach by your side).

To respect your nervous system, and to accept your body where it is currently at. Not trying to do too much, too soon, but instead starting where you can. If you can only walk for 5 minutes, walk for 5 minutes. If you need to ice your injured knee before you work out, ice your injured knee.

It’s about bringing all of these different things together, and figuring out what works for you.

Central Sensitization, Chronic Pain, Pain Neurophysiology Education, Pain Science, physical therapy, Treatment Approaches

What is pain neurophysiology education?

February 7, 2017February 7, 2017 sunlight in winter

In a nutshell, pain neurophysiology education is the type of treatment for chronic pain that changed my life and inspired me to become a physical therapist.

I’ve mentioned it in passing on this blog, but I decided it’s high time I give the topic its own post.

***

In my series “How a physical therapist helped me through my lowest point,” you can read the story of how my life had ground to a halt because of chronic pain, until I finally met Tim, a physical therapist who had studied with Neil Pearson.

Tim treated my pain in an entirely different manner than all the physical therapists and doctors I’d seen previously.

He explained to me that after all my body had been through– running 45 miles a week, only to develop compartment syndrome and barely be able to stand, to live like that for two years, and then to undergo surgery– my nervous system had gotten confused.

All the pain doctors hadn’t been able to explain– it wasn’t because I was crazy.

In fact, the reason I was feeling all this pain was because my body was trying to protect me.

My nervous system had decided the world was a dangerous place. It was tired of me taking chances– it didn’t want to have to deal with another injury. So it was making everything hurt. It was making me feel as though I were made of glass.

But I wasn’t made of glass, Tim assured me. My body was strong; it was capable. And this attempt on the part of my nervous system to protect me had over-served its purpose.

Tim explained that the surgery I’d had for compartment syndrome had been successful, and despite how much my legs might hurt at times, I wasn’t going to be able to bring it back just by walking down the street.

***

The pain neurophysiology approach worked when nothing else had, because it gave me a real explanation for the pain that actually made sense.

Before that, all the physical therapists I’d seen (and I’d seen a lot) had taken one of two approaches:

A) You have some underlying soft tissue problem or scar tissue or whatnot that we have to fix with a special treatment, or

B) I can’t really find anything wrong with you, so the pain must be in your head and you should probably see a psychologist.

Neither of these approaches ever made a difference for me. The “special treatments” for the hidden, subtle issues in approach A never fixed anything or reduced my pain (except temporarily, because I felt like I was doing something). And approach B never fixed anything, because ultimately these problems were not reflective of my overall mental health.

Instead, I learned, my pain was the result of a specific phenomenon that occurs within the nervous system: central sensitization. Basically, the underlying principle here is that the more practice the nervous system gets at sending signals, the better it will get at sending those signals. And that is true of pain signals, along with everything else.

***

Tim didn’t really use the words “pain neurophysiology education” while I was seeing him for treatment. Instead, I first found this phrase while I was looking through Neil Pearson‘s website, as Tim had urged me to do.

From there, I discovered the names of other physical therapists and researchers who had contributed to developing pain neurophysiology education, or PNE as I’ll be referring to it in the future.

Names such as David Butler of the Neuro Orthopedic Institute, and Lorimer Moseley of the research group Body in Mind.

From there I have discovered so many interesting resources, and articles, and interesting people doing work on the subject.

***

For 2017, I’m trying to get back to my roots on this blog. I started blogging to educate people on the science of chronic pain, and I really enjoy doing that. So I’m planning to start channeling more energy towards that again.

So I’m going to start fleshing out this section of the blog again. I’ll be providing a lot more explanations, linking to great resources, and also quoting excerpts from articles that I think explain things really well.

And I’ll be telling my own story, when it comes to my struggle to understand my body, and learning to deal with central sensitization.

***

For now, I want to leave you with two posts I wrote on some of the main concepts I learned through my experience with PNE:

Understanding pain as your body’s alarm system

Understanding pain as an overprotective friend

These posts tie in a couple of anecdotes from Neil Pearson and Lorimer Moseley that I found particularly helpful. (Let me say, once again, that I am so, so grateful for their work!).

***

I hope you find this post, and the related articles I linked to, to be helpful! I’m really excited about the things I plan to write about in the future, and I hope you stay tuned!

Central Sensitization, Chronic Pain, Nervous System, Pain Science, Resources

The best TED talk ever: Elliot Krane on the Mystery of Chronic pain

February 2, 2017February 3, 2017 sunlight in winter

Tonight I’m throwing it back to this amazing 2011 lecture on chronic pain given by Dr. Elliot Krane of Stanford University.

I found his talk around the time I was first starting this blog, back in 2012, and it really inspired me to try to tell my own story with complex pain problems.

Dr. Krane is a pediatrician and an anesthesiologist. He specializes in treating children with chronic pain disorders at the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford University.

In this talk, Dr. Krane outlines the case of a young girl who developed CRPS following a wrist sprain, and was successfully treated at his hospital.

He has some really great quotes and soundbites about chronic pain– things I want to remember, and things I think will be useful in trying to explain the multi-layered nature of pain to people who don’t quite get it (yet).

So here, I’m just going to take a few notes so I (and you, if you’re interested) can come back and remember some key points really quickly:

***

Most of the time, we think of pain as a symptom of a disease– the result of an infection or a tumor, an inflammation or an operation. But about 10% of the time, after a patient recovers from one of those events, the pain persists for months or even years. In those cases, pain can become its own disease.

Chronic pain is “a positive feedback loop…. It’s almost as if somebody came into your home and rewired yours walls so that the next time you turned on the light switch, the toilet flushed three doors down, or your dishwasher went on, or your computer monitor turned off. It sounds crazy, but that’s what happens with chronic pain.”

Glial cells (a particular type of cell found in the nervous system) were once thought to be unimportant. When I learned about them in my PT prerequisite classes, we thought of them as the supportive “glue” that provides a safe environment for neurons, the more interesting cells that were actually responsible for sending messages.

But, Dr. Krane explains, it turns out that glial cells can play a vital role in the “modulation, amplification and, in the case of pain, the distortion of sensory experiences.” Once glial cells are triggered by chronic pain, they become overactive and help initiate that the positive feedback loop he mentioned.

Some other quotes:

“The nervous system has plasticity. It changes, and it morphs in response to stimuli.”

On treatment:

“We treat these patients in a rather crude fashion at this point in time. ”

Dr. Krane describes the treatment protocol for CRPS patients at his center:

symptom modifying drugs (painkillers) “which are frankly, not very effective for this type of pain”

“We take nerves that are noisy and active that should be quiet, and we put them to sleep with local anesthetics.”

“Most importantly… we use a rigorous and often uncomfortable process of physical therapy and occupational therapy to retrain the nervous system to respond normally to the activities and sensory experiences that are part of everyday life.“

The future is actually even brighter:

“…the future holds the promise that new drugs will be developed that are not symptom-modifying drugs that simply mask the problem, as we have now, but that will be disease-modifying drugs, that will actually go right to the root of the problem and attack those glial cells….that spill over and cause this central nervous system wind-up…”

***

It’s really interesting for me to look back on this talk, now, and see how my perspective has changed since I first watched it in 2011. Back then, the point about glial cells largely went over my head (probably because I wasn’t invested at all in knowing what they were).

Now that I’ve taken anatomy & physiology as well as an undergraduate neuroscience course, I can actually see how groundbreaking this really is, to identify glial cells as a potential source of the problem.

It’s as though you’re looking at a telephone pole, and you realize that the wooden pole itself was sending signals, instead of just being there to hold up the electrical wires. (If that metaphor makes sense).

Anyway, I really hope Dr. Krane is right, that we can begin to develop drugs that will target this mechanism for chronic pain.

Hope you enjoyed this talk!

Central Sensitization, Chronic Pain, Favorites, Pain Science

What is central sensitization?

January 26, 2016January 30, 2017 sunlight in winter

Central sensitization: the back story to just about every story I tell on this blog. I’ve written the phrase a million times, but always in passing, always with a link to an article somewhere else. I think it’s high time the topic gets its own post.

Practice Makes Perfect

We’ve all heard the phrase “practice makes perfect,” right? When you want to get better at something, you practice. Want to learn how to play the piano? Practice. Want to learn how to ride a bike? Practice.

3320139093_3afa687cc9_o — Photo: t.spang

Our nervous systems are always changing and growing, in response to the things we do. Our brains form new connections all the time.

This is how we learn how to control our fingers, and move them more quickly and in more complicated patterns, when we practice the piano. It’s how we learn to balance when riding a bike. It becomes second nature.

460089931_0ec04cc73e_o — Photo: Alan Levine

Unfortunately, the same thing can happen when you give your nervous system enough changes to “practice” sending pain signals.

It sounds crazy, but basically, our nervous systems get better at sending these signals. It doesn’t happen automatically– you won’t develop central sensitization if you stub your toe, or get stung by a bee.

But it can happen if the pain goes on for long enough. For example, central sensitization can happen to someone who’s hurt their back, and has been in pain for a few months. The nervous system has been sending these pain signals over and over again, and now– just as if the person had been practicing the piano for a few months– the task has gotten easier.

Central sensitization can also occur in someone who has suffered a larger degree of trauma in a shorter time period. For example, it can happen to someone who’s had surgery– even if he or she was under anesthesia at the time.

This is because central sensitization involves nerves, your spinal cord, and the parts of your brain that process pain without conscious thought. They are still learning how to process all those pain signals, even if you are under anesthesia. (Of course, I’m not saying this will happen to everyone who has surgery. It is, however, a possibility).

In a nutshell, central sensitization means the central nervous system becomes more sensitive.

There are many different ways in which central sensitization can manifest itself– the symptoms are not always the same from person to person.

The differences have to do with the person’s individual genetic makeup, what the original illness or injury was, and other health issues the person may have. (And yes– the person’s beliefs and perspective on pain can have an impact on how they respond to central sensitization, but they do not cause it. More on this later– I have very strong feelings on the subject!).

Invisible Illness

Scientific research has shown that central sensitization tends to be present in patients suffering from many of the conditions people generally refer to when they talk about “invisible illness.” These conditions include fibromyalgia, chronic regional pain syndrome, migraine, temporal-mandibular joint disorder, chronic pelvic pain, and irritable bowel syndrome.

Sometimes central sensitization is the root of the problem: for example, researchers now generally believe it to be the cause of fibromyalgia (please, please don’t believe the other things you read!).

In other cases, central sensitization is one of several contributing factors (still playing an important role, however). This is more likely to be the case in conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome, which can also be influenced by food intolerances/imbalances in gut bacteria, and temporal-mandibular joint disorder, which involves the physical pathology of the joint. In these cases, central sensitization perpetuates the problem and causes additional pain and discomfort, but is not necessarily the primary cause.

The Common Link

Because central sensitization is the common cause, it makes sense that so many patients with fibromyalgia also suffer from other “invisible illnesses.” For example, studies have shown that significant numbers of fibromyalgia sufferers also have irritable bowel syndrome.

I have so much more to say on this topic– more research to tell you about, the history of how it was discovered, as well as my own personal stories.

But…. as I have to keep reminding myself, I’m writing a blog, not a textbook… so all of that will have to come in future posts!

Citations:

I think it’s important to always post links to scientifically-valid articles when I talk about scientific/medical concepts.

Here is a great plain-English overview on central sensitization, written by Christina Lasich, M.D., for HealthCentral.net.

Next, an incredible overview of the science on central sensitization from Paul Ingraham of PainScience.com, which is an amazing website.

Ingraham’s article is actually a “jargon-to-English” summary of this important review of the scientific literature on central sensitization written by Clifford Woolf, the researcher who first discovered central sensitization back in 1983.

Finally, check out this equally important article from Muhammad Yunus, who has done vital work exploring the common links between central sensitization and the invisible illnesses (he calls them central sensitivity syndromes in this article).

I realize that the average reader might not be able to understand all of the scientific terms in these articles (I know I struggle), but I want you to know that legitimate and credible information is out there, and this is what it looks like.

A Note to My Readers:

I am always happy to answer any questions that you might have. I think that all of this information is so important for us to be aware of as chronic pain sufferers! It can really be life-changing, once you start to truly understand the roots of your condition.

I am always so curious to know what you think! Did you already know that central sensitization is believed to be the cause of fibromyalgia? Does the common link between fibro and other invisible illnesses make sense to you? Let me know!

Category: Chronic Pain

Christopher deCharms: A look inside the brain in real time