Pain is both an emotional and physical experience and it does not always correlate with actual injury or tissue damage. The International Association for the Study of Pain states that pain is “An unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage or described in terms of such damage”.1
Pain is complex and researchers do not know why some patients have pain with certain injuries or conditions and others do not.
I often like to draw a picture for my patients detailing the bumpy road of healing and pain reduction.
People generally view anything that is not a straight line positive curve as a sign that something is going wrong, or that they will not heal. Steps backward feel like the opposite of pressing forward on a healing journey. But the truth is a lot less straight forward. Healing and reducing pain is an up and down, bumpy, topsy-turvy type of journey, with times where one feels great success and other times where one may feel defeated. Sometimes, pain is so all-encompassing that one may feel like they will always be in pain, or that they will never be better. But this is not necessarily true, either. Everything in our lives is in flux, and even pain comes and goes, is better or worse, and even longstanding pain may be fully relieved. We do not know what the future of our pain holds, but we do know that it is forever changing.
If you have pain or if you are afraid of hurting yourself and avoiding exercise because of it, please come visit us and let us help you become active again!