What is Pain?
Pain is your bodies way of telling you that something is not quite right. Pain can present as anything from a mild uncomfortable pressure to an excruciating and debilitating experience. Not only is the level of pain variable, the pain can be experienced in a number of different ways. stabbing, aching, throbbing, steady, sharp or pinching are just some ways that you may hear yourself or others describe their pain.
There are different types of pain:
Acute Pain
Acute pain is relatively short lived and is often related to a soft tissue injury or a temporary illness. This sort of pain usually subsides once the injury has healed or illness has subsided.
Chronic Pain
Is pain experienced for a longer duration. it can be constant or intermittent and is often associated with health conditions, injuries that have not healed correctly, spinal misalignments or pain receptors malfunctioning.
These can also be broken down further
Neuropathic Pain
This is a type of chronic pain that is due to damage to the nerves or other part of the nervous system. People often get this type of pain when they have shingles, sciatica, neck or back radiculopathy, trigeminal neuralgia, or diabetic neuropathy.
Nocioceptive Pain
Nociceptors are sensory endings on nerves that can be excited or sensitized and signal potential tissue damage. This sort of pain can occur when there is damage to a particular tissue OR if it believes there is potential for damage. This sort of pain occurs when we sprain an ankle or touch something hot.
Nocioplastic Pain
This is often similar to nociceptive pain, but without any clear evidence of damage (or potential damage) of tissue. It might be aligned with more psycho-somatic causes for the pain to be occurring.
What is inflammation
Inflammation is your bodies response to a pathogen or damage tissue. It is the result of the immune system fighting off disease and repairing damaged tissue.
There are two types of inflammation
Acute
This is the redness, warmth, swelling, and pain around tissues and joints that occurs in response to an injury. It is your immune system protecting yourself from disease and speeding up healing. It is usually short lived until the threat has been eliminated and the damaged tissues restored.
Chronic
This is when your bodies inflammation is dialled up and lingers around for a long time. Your immune system continues to pump out white blood cells in response to injuries that it is unable to heal or perceived threats it’s unable to get rid of.
Some symptoms can include the following:
- body pain
- constant fatigue and insomnia
- depression, anxiety and mood disorders
- problems with digestion
- weight gain
- frequent infections.
Is pain and inflammation beneficial?
Because pain is our bodies way of telling us things are not quite right, it brings our awareness to the issue so we can better protect ourselves from further damage and perhaps take action to support healing. Inflammation also helps our body to protect itself from further damage by keeping it free of disease as well as repairing any damage that it has already experienced. So yes, pain and inflammation are beneficial… to an extent.
If when the damage is repaired and the threat has gone and the pain receptors are still sending out pain signals and inflammatory responses are still be being triggered, this can cause more harm than good. Chronic inflammation can sometimes cause healthy tissues to be attacked and Chronic pain causes restrictive movement leading which can lead to further issues with wellbeing.
How can Kinesiology help with Pain and Inflammation
In Kinesiology, and Chinese Medicine, Pain is caused by the blockage, stagnation or hinderance in the energy flows of the body. What I see with clients, is when there is pain, there is an excess of energy in your meridian systems that relates to those areas. This makes sense as all the sensory awareness is being sent to that area.
When the pain is acute
a kinesiologist may be able to use pain relief techniques to reduce pain and inflammation in these areas. It is important to note that pain and inflammation during this time can be helpful for healing of the area and to ensure that you don’t do further damage by using the injured tissues. So, it might be more suitable to assist the body with supporting the healing process at this time.
For chronic pain,
Kinesiology has some fantastic tools that may help reduce pain and facilitate the bodies energy systems into a healing state. Depending on the cause or type of pain, the muscle testing that kinesiology uses, may also be able to indicate the resources that body is wanting in order to activate the healing that is needed. It always is trying to move towards homeostasis, free of pain and full of energy. Sometimes it just needs that extra support to do so.
Pain caused by structural imbalances
is something that kinesiology is built on. With it’s foundations in chiropractic, reinstating the function to the muscles in the body and ensuring they work synergistically is one of its core concepts. If all muscles in the body are functioning in this way, there will be even tension in the muscles, ease of flexibility and more fluid and integrated movement within the body. Postural deviations will be alleviated and spinal alignments will ensure messages are getting clearly along the nervous system. It reduces likelihood of injury, decreases the pain in areas that the body sensed a potential for damage and allows healing of injured tissues to take place.
Memory of trauma
Can also cause muscles and areas of the body to continue to stay in their hyper-vigilant state to ensure it is protected from further damage. Kinesiology helps to release stress and trauma from areas of the body, so it can return to functioning as part of the whole unit.
Inflammation caused by allergies and sensitivities
can cause the body to be in a hyper-inflammed state and lead to chronic inflammation issues in the body. PKP in particular may be able to identify theses immune mismatch responses and in some instances may be able to help your body to repattern those. Chronic inflammation from sensitivities can sometimes cause the body to attack its own healthy cells, and this may lead to further pain.
A kinesiologists tool kit looks at the whole person and uses holistic means to help you.
