"Should I keep doing it if it hurts?" | Chronic Pain Podcast

But what is actually wrong with me?

And I understand the question; ‘what is actually wrong with me?’. You want to “know your enemy”. But why do you think your enemy can be seen? If you were to take an MRI of your eye whilst you were looking at a sunflower, do you think you could see a flower on the MRI?

No of course not. So why do you think that by getting an MRI on your lower back, you will see what is causing the pain?

The psychobiological model for psychiatry has been argued as being obsolete by Suman Fernando

We are greater than our anatomy, individual chemicals and compounds

So why do we insist on diagnosis and “powerful” interventions

Why do we insist on scans, surgery and blood tests; diagnosis and prognosis despite no evidence showing this is worthwhile and that it may in fact be harmful? Filling our creative minds with a threatening image or description is never good, as anyone who has googled their symptoms will know.

Because we are:

• curious by nature
  
• often passive by nature
  
• have been fed a false, pacifying ideology of pain and suffering
  

Humans are curious, we want answers. But we are often very passive. Every invention we pride has made things easier. A dog would invent a computer with a treadmill attached. We instead invent the remote control. The less effort the better

It’s the same with relief from pain; mental or physical. If you can pop a pill, have a drink, have an operation, injection etc. you’re all good! You don’t even question the logic behind cutting into a painful area to reduce the pain? Just God forbid you have to actually put the effort in to reduce the pain

The Truth

The truth is that pain is complicated but the mind and body in all their complexity have one key advantage. They adapt. Endurance and strength athletes have a far greater tolerance to pain than inactive individuals.

Exercise based rehab has shown to be superior to purely manual therapy treatment for patients (BEAM trials 2004)

Exposure therapy has been a key pillar of CBT, exposing an individual to manageable levels of a threat so they adapt.

And once they adapt they can be moved onto the next stage of rehab or therapy.

The Guide

The issue is, to me, there seems to be a cry out for someone to take the pain away and I get it. It’s like when you’re a child and you hurt your knee, your mum or teacher might wet a towel and dab the sore spot and the pain goes. There are so many examples of insignificant interventions causing pain to drop.

The issue is when we rely on something other than ourselves. 20 visits with the chiropractor, another bottle of wine, another month on pain killers

You don’t need a hero. You’re the hero. You need a guide

Find someone who empowers you. Someone who can make you the hero of your story. Become someone who can rise in triumph against the ill fortune of physical and mental pain.

Stop looking for someone to take responsibility for your own deconditioning to trauma. Find someone who will help you to eventually look at what caused you to wince, or hide, or grimace... and be comfortable with it

If you need to find your guide then contact the myself at the Revitalize Clinic 6000 clients in and we’re helping people to create lives they love.

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