Pain is not always where you think it is

When clients come see me for chronic pain relief, they invariably point to a spot on their body and say it hurts here, usually followed with the expectation that I would go work on that specific spot. There’s just one problem; the area where you feel pain is rarely the SOURCE of the pain. The exception to that statement is if there was a recent injury to the area.

Everything inside the circle impacts the circle. That’s your body as a whole. Everything outside the circle impacts the circle. That’s your environment.

But what does it all mean? It means chronic pain does not always present in the area that is the source of the problem. Pain typically presents in the area of compensation, meaning you have to find the source somewhere else.

So why is this the case? The answer is simple, and complicated. Human bodies are wonderful at creating patterns based on your environment, and your body’s response to your environment. Muscles and muscle patterns adapt when, how, and what they do based on the environment. BUT. They never adapt in the same way twice. Muscles respond depending on what you did and your environment, directly before what you just did. You could have two identical experiences, and your body will respond differently both times. Why? Once you create a pattern, your body must respond and that response determines the next pattern. Because the response always changes, so the pattern does too. Then you throw in changes in the environment, or an injury, and the whole body responds differently again. This can create a chronic state of your body being in dysfunction, and you begin to lose your ability to adapt to your ever changing environment.

Charles Darwin is often quoted that only the strong survive, however his original quote on that is a bit different than what people share. He stated “It is not the most intellectual of the species that survives; it is not the strongest that survives; but the species that survives is the one that is able best to adapt and adjust to the changing environment in which it finds itself.” Granted he is referencing the survival of an entire species, however the same quote can be true for each individual person. If your body is in a constant state of dysfunction and continues to create improper responses without correction, your body will begin to wear out faster than your age. Our bodies are wonderful at compensating, almost to a fault. This is how some people have the spine of an 80 year old, at the age of 40 or 50. If your body is better able to adapt to the constant change around and inside itself, your “survival”, especially your ability to live pain free, can be exponentially increased.

That’s where I come in. Part of my job as your massage therapist is to look at your body in it’s entirety, looking for clues that may be contributing to, if not causing, your patterns that have resulted in pain. So while I will address the area of pain, I will often go to outlying areas, or ask questions about injuries and such in the past. This helps create the overall picture of how your body moves and responds to outside influences, and allows me to develop of plan on how to allow your body to move more freely and adapt to it’s environment, despite these constant changes.