You Change My Brain To Provide Back Pain Relief?

A common thing we hear on a day to day basis is that people have been suffering from their pain for 2/3/4 and even up to 5 years. Do you know how long human tissues take to physiologically heal? Anything ligament related can takeup to 2 years to heal and ligaments are known for taking the longest to heal, due to their poor blood supply. When people come to us who have been in pain for 2+ years, we can quickly conclude that the likelihood of local tissue damage is extremely slim. So, why is your pain still there, even when the actual tissues have healed? This is a concept known as sensitisation and it is what we are going to be talking about throughout this blog, with the science and mechanisms behind chronic pain and how we at Team Peak use this knowledge to serve 1600+ client visits per month and get them pain free. 

How Pain Normally Works

• Detection: Pain receptors in the body sense damage or danger.

• Transmission: Signals travel from these receptors to the spinal cord and then to the brain.

• Perception: The brain interprets these signals as pain.

• Modulation: The body can enhance or reduce these pain signals.

 

What is Sensitisation?

Sensitisation is when the CNS, particularly the spinal cord and the brain become extra responsive to stimulus. This means when light touch or normal movement can cause significant pain. The process of sensitisation can occur after an accident or trauma to the body causing that area of the body to become more sensitive. This heightened sensitivity means that normal sensory inputs and even inputs that shouldn’t cause pain, are perceived as painful which becomes a learnt process that the brain develops, similar to a way memory is formed. When this pain pathway is formed, the body and brain still detect pain even years after the tissues have physiologically healed, leading to chronic pain.

 

Key Mechanisms Behind Sensitisation 

• Increased signal transmission
• Pain signals are amplified in the spinal cord.
• Chemicals boost these pain signals.
• Reduced inhibitory control
• In a healthy working brain and nervous system, the brain usually dampens pain signals but in people with chronic pain, the ability to control this is reduced.
• Neuroinflammation
• Cells within the central nervous system release substances that increase nerve sensitivity.
• Changes in Gene Expression
• Chronic pain can alter gene activity in nerves, making them even more sensitive.
• Enhanced synaptic connections
• Pain pathways become stronger and more efficient at sending pain signals, further reinforcing the pain pathway as your brain learns to be in pain. 

 

At Peak Chiropractic, we understand this concept which allows us to provide the best care for our clients. The way we integrate this into our practice is by testing the muscles throughout your body, to understand what compensation patterns your brain has developed which are preventing your body from feeling pain free. Using the power of adjustments, we are able to retrain the brain and break the pain cycle you have developed over your lifetime so that we not only help you in the short term but also to prevent this pain from coming back again in the future. 

References

Volcheck, M. M., Graham, S. M., Fleming, K. C., Mohabbat, A. B., & Luedtke, C. A. (2023). Central sensitization, chronic pain, and other symptoms: Better understanding, better management. Cleveland Clinic journal of medicine, 90(4), 245–254. https://doi.org/10.3949/ccjm.90a.22019

Latremoliere, A., & Woolf, C. J. (2009). Central sensitization: a generator of pain hypersensitivity by central neural plasticity. The journal of pain, 10(9), 895–926. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpain.2009.06.012