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Let’s face it, pain sucks. Period. It can put a damper on our performance, may it be physically, mentally, and or emotionally. But what is pain? How does it work? Why does it function as such? Let me give you a quick rundown of how things work according to pain science. But first, a quick story:

A builder aged 29 came to the accident and emergency department having jumped down on to a 15 cm nail. As the smallest movement of the nail was painful he was sedated with fentanyl and midazolam. The nail was then pulled out from below. When his boot was removed a miraculous cure appeared to have taken place. Despite entering proximal to the steel toecap the nail had penetrated between the toes: the foot was entirely uninjured.

JP Fisher, senior house officer, DT Hassan, senior registrar, N O’Connor, registrar, accident and emergency department, Leicester Royal Infirmary (from painscience.com)

So is pain then purely psychological? Can we just apply the old term “suck it up, buttercup” and be done with it? Not exactly. As much as we want to simply will away, or will our pain to be less, unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Several factors (beliefs, memories, emotional state) come into play when it comes to pain. Also from a physiological standpoint, our body will not allow us to have full control of something significant (as with breathing). Seeing his foot thoroughly, the builder believed that his foot was badly hurt, triggering enough of his nociceptive receptors for him to physically feel pain, where there was no damage at all in the first place. Fascinating, don’t you think? This story pretty much dispels the notion that pain always arises from tissue damage.

But what is nociception, and how does it work? Nociception is your body’s sensory response to threats that may cause damage. As we mentioned earlier, if enough of these receptors are triggered, it sends a signal up to your brain, which then weighs the importance of said signal, causing the brain to produce pain if it deems that the body needs protection. Continuous stimulation of these receptors may force the brain to adapt by increasing our body’s sensitivity for pain in order to protect the body from damage. Now the caveat to this prolonged state of alert is that pain may outlast the injury itself, furthermore, the longer the pain persists, the longer and more difficult it is to reverse.

Quick recap:

1. Pain is not always the product of damage, we also need to include the fact that pain is a sign that there is probably something amiss in our bodies.
2.  Pain is complex, it’s influenced by both physical and abstract factors
3. Do not wait to do something about the pain you’re experiencing, the longer you wait, the longer it will take for it to get better.

Roniel Dio, RMT