Pain - A Reminder
I’m pretty sure I’ve said it before, but it’s always a good reminder — pain is created by your brain, not by your body.
What does this mean? It means that your brain is in charge of deciding whether or not to create the sensation of pain. This decision-making process involves two steps:
Gathering input/information from the whole body. This information includes the status of tissues, movement and position, and sensation.
Processing that input and deciding what it means. This involves summing up all of the information, comparing it to information from previous experiences and deciding what (if any) action needs to be taken.
If you have actual tissue damage, the brain still has to receive that information and decide whether or not to create pain. You can have tissue damage and yet feel no pain, and you can have pain without any tissue damage — one does not equal the other!
So, if you experience pain, remember that the pain does not mean you are injured. It may, but it also may be that your brain created the pain for another reason. Perhaps you didn’t sleep well the night before, perhaps your sensation on part of your foot is diminished, or perhaps a joint doesn’t have good proprioception. Your brain made the decision to create pain — now you just have to figure out why!
**If you are dealing with pain that hasn’t been explained/resolved through medical intervention, please reach out! We can look more closely at all of the factors that might cause your brain to create this sensation and work to identify some solutions.