Today’s Brain Booster is: Calm your fear, and pain will disappear.
Last week I did a deep dive into pain, and the key points were that there are two types of pain, classified by their cause:
- Physical pain — caused by being punched in the nose (or some other kind of injury).
- Neuroplastic pain — caused by an over-protective brain circuit. There’s no physical damage, no broken nose, and no pulled muscle, but your brain generates pain because it thinks you’re under some kind of threat.
Following on from this, I’m going to answer some important whether questions from Peter.
How do I know whether my pain is physical or neuroplastic?
Last week you provided a comprehensive list of conditions — such as fibromyalgia, tension headaches and IBS — that were classified as neuroplastic, because there was no physical damage to a person’s muscles or head. This I can understand. But you also gave chronic neck, shoulder and back pain as examples of neuroplastic pain.
I’ve had chronic lower back pain for more than one year, and an MRI scan showed that I have disc degeneration, as well as a bulging disc. I also get intermittent shoulder pain, but no one can find a cause. Is my shoulder pain neuroplastic, or could the doctors be missing something?
I’d also like to know whether the principles of curing neuroplastic pain, could also reduce my back pain?
The majority of adults who are completely pain-free have what LOOK like severe structural issues on their MRI scans. These are famously referred to as ‘normal abnormalities’.
In other words, as we age, we all start to get grey hair, wrinkles, and disc degeneration.
None of these cause pain.
Grey hair does not cause pain.
Wrinkles do not cause pain.
And degenerative discs do NOT cause pain.
The belief that disc degeneration and herniation DO cause pain is one of the biggest misconceptions in modern medicine.
A massive systematic review published in the American Journal of Neuroradiology highlighted that normal abnormalities on MRI scans are almost ubiquitous findings in healthy pain-free populations. Tune in to learn how to distinguish physical back pain from neuroplastic back pain.
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Today’s Health Headline is: Pain can be modified by our mind.
The most famous example of acute neuroplastic pain is the case of a 29-year-old construction worker who jumped down onto a scaffolding plank and accidentally landed on a long sharp nail that was pointing upwards, and pierced right through his boot. The nail was so long (18 cm or 7 inches) that the tip of the nail could be seen poking out of the top of his heavy boot.
The man was rushed to the emergency department of Leicester Royal Infirmary in the UK, and because he was in so much agony, he had to be sedated and given intravenous opioids so that the medical staff could cut the boot off his foot. When they did so, they were absolutely astounded to find that the nail had passed BETWEEN his toes and his foot was completely unscathed!
There was zero injury to his foot. There wasn’t a drop of blood.
When the man came out of the sedation and was told what had happened, his pain immediately vanished.
Calm the fear, and pain will disappear.
Intense pain can occur without physical injury or actual tissue trauma in any situation where our brain perceives or anticipates danger, be that physical or emotional danger.
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What’s Missing From Modern Medicine is recognising that calming fear can make pain disappear — which is today’s Brain Booster, and also Step 3 of the 6-Step Process to retrain your brain to release chronic pain.
Step 1 was Educate before you medicate
Step 2 was — be Curious, not critical
And Step 3 is Calm your fear, and pain will disappear.
Feeling SAFE is absolutely fundamental to all healing.
In Step 3, you’ll gather concrete evidence that there’s nothing to fear, and then use this evidence to self-soothe. Only when your brain is absolutely convinced that you’re safe, will it stop sending pain signals. Listen to this episode for the details.
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Click here to watch the episode on my YouTube channel, or listen to Healing with Dr Helena on your preferred podcast platform. I’ll publish a new episode every Monday, and you’ll receive an email notification that morning. Please subscribe to my podcast or YouTube channel so that you don’t miss an episode, and send your whether questions to: podcast@drhelenapopovic.com
If you’re happy for me to play your voice on my podcast, you can provide an audio file. Otherwise, you can type your question for me to read out.
I very much look forward to answering your questions, and exploring how we can all build a smarter brain, stronger body and deeply fulfilling life.
Please share this Health-e-Byte with anyone who has chronic pain.
