What type of pain might you have?

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There are three main types of pain which create different symptoms: 

  • Nociceptive pain - pain from an injured body structure, often in a consistent area, aggravated by the same movements and eased when movement stops or is not in a straining direction. Nociceptive pain often responds well to anti-inflammatory medication and resolves within the normal healing time-frame of 6-12 weeks.
 
  • Neuropathic pain - pain from damage to a nerve structure, characterised by unremitting pain in consistently the same area, often with tingling, burning or even random electrical shock sensations (ectopic firing), sometimes muscle weakness and numbness, and usually not responsive to anti-inflammatory medication.
 
  • Chronic central sensitisation pain (now referred to as nociplastic pain by pain scientists). This is pain which is not consistently in the same place, is not related to actual tissue damage (because the original damage heals within 3 months), is not always responsive to anti-inflammatory medication and is accompanied by many other strange or unexplained symptoms. Unexplained symptoms may be gut-related symptoms, limb 'heaviness', sensitivity to light / sound / taste / smell, pains in multiple body areas, poor sleep, poor attention and concentration, 'brain fog', among others. 
Chronic central sensitisation (nociplastic pain) is an increase in sensitivity of various senses and to pain sensations so that you feel many more sensations from your body than you normally would. You would normally filter out many bodily symptoms as the brain ignores irrelevant sensations, but with central sensitisation this filtering mechanism is diminished. Consequently, you may perceive many more sensations than you used to, some of which are painful. The filtering mechanism is likely to be diminished further when you are stressed, anxious or haven't slept well for a few nights, thereby increasing your symptoms.
            The focus here is to retrain the brain primarily, not the damaged muscles/ligaments etc.. This is very important to understand.











                 TIPS 

What can reduce chronic central sensitisation?
  • Understanding your sensitivity
  • Improved sleep
  • Stress management
  • Identify and reduce stressors including
    • nutritional stressors
    • emotional & physical stressors
  • Graduated, non-threatening exercise
  • Sensorimotor retraining