Pain: What is It?
Pain is a sensation you receive or perceive, that indicates something is interfering with a nerve or series of nerves in your body.
Most of the nerve cells that transmit pain are located towards the outside of the body. Included here are the skin, muscles, ligaments and joints.
It is interesting that a person could be stabbed in the gut and not feel the pain, except where the entry wound was. You hear about people being shot in war, etc and not knowing it until they see blood.
Pain: Why is it So Bad or Constant?
Pain is only "bad" or annoying when it
- Won't go away
- Won't stay away
- Hurts bad (acute or sharp pain)
- Nags (chronic or continual pain)
- Moves around
Pain: The Pain--Stop Mechanism
If you're experiencing Pain numbers 1-5 above, you should know how the body works with regards to pain.
First off, from a body's perspective (not the person who occupies the body), pain is present when the body wants to stop something. A person breaks their leg. Moving it will further injure it. The body sends the "pain" message to stop any further movement.
Or a person herinates a disc in their low back. Further bending or twisting may result in a complete rupture of the disc. The body puts out pain signals to "lock" a person in-place (thus low back pain).
We can live with this mechanism temporarily. Not numbers 1 to 5 above though.
Pain: The Reason it Stays Around and Gets Worse
The Pain--Stop system above is actually somewhat workable: You hurt yourself and your body immobilizes the area so it can heal.
But there is more to the story that ruins anyone's day (or life) with regards to pain.
There is a second and more severe pain reflex that exists in all of us: I call it the "Pain Chat Room".
The Pain Chat Room consists of a series of nerves that are interconnected in the body. When you injure yourself, have arthritis or a muscle pull you "ding" a nerve (aggravate a nerve). Let's call this the primary nerve or injury area.
Through a very complex network of interconnecting nerves, the pain signal spreads. The one pain nerve gets irritated and recruits other pain nerves to also "turn on". This can be in the several million of neurons!
Now you have pain! It is "real" pain, but most of it reactive pain, meaning there are no "causes" other than this "red alert" phenomena of nerve excitement.
Pain begets pain. If you are in a little pain to start, especially in nerve-rich areas like your back, hands, head and jaw, it spreads into a huge pain event.
I don't know why it happened this way, but the nervous system is extra sensitive. Every nerve has a backup nerve. And all nerves are either directly or indirectly connected.
So when one has a small pain "incident" (pull a muscle, pinch a nerve, twist something) your body amplifies it to being a huge event. And the majority of the pain you are experiencing are from these secondary reactions or the Chat Room Effect.
And it tends to get worse.
Pain: How to Handle
Since most pain you are experiencing is then this secondary pain, of aggravated nerves that do not in fact, have really anything "wrong" with them, (other than this domino effect brought on by the actual area of pain), most successful pain relief programs I have used or developed work to "take out" these other areas.
I Have Three Recommendations for You to Help You with Your Pain:
- Give your body minerals that are natural anti-inflammatory agents and help reduce pain.
- Use a natural topical analgesic to lessen the effect of pain.
- Soak your body in mineral salts to help pull out toxins and inflammation in your areas of pain.
- Use the Perfect Massager!
