WHY DOES MY PAIN COME BACK?
Today we figured we would try our best to answer a common question Avery and myself get quite frequently. “Why does my pain go away, and then come back?” While this question can be difficult to understand, even for us as clinicians, we will do our best to lay it out as we have in the past for clients just like you!
As pain is complex and multifactorial in nature, there too remains a variety of reasons for why our pain “comes back”. The most important thing to know is that pain is a conscious, emotional experience. Our brains are usually good at paying attention to one “complex” task, and one “easy” task. Think about doing work while listening to music. Now think about singing your favorite song out loud and doing work, things start to become a bit more difficult. The great thing about rehab is that we can offer many tools to help desensitize you to pain, and shift your state of consciousness and perception to allow you to get more out of movement or exercise.
Since every thought/emotion we have is a “living connection” of nerves inside of us (pretty crazy right!) while we are able to shift focus as needed or influenced by medicine, massage, breathing, movement, etc, etc – it is when that added stimulus is gone for long enough, our “old” feelings and thoughts come right back. This is part of the reason it is easy to think “everything works” and “everything doesn’t” often leading to further frustration or despair.
The good news to take away is that if you were able to learn pain, the thoughts and emotions that come with it, and we can influence its behavior (even temporarily), even though it comes back we know that you can achieve a pain free state! So keep going, learning, and adding behaviors to help you continue to move forward in your journey!
We know it can be difficult to ask for help, and it is normal to have feelings of guilt, sadness, or even inadequacy throughout this process. When we think about pain as a conscious experience, and realize that flares are a normal part of EVERYONE’S recovery process you can suddenly realize that you are on the right path and the best thing to do is to continue to walk it.
Pain comes with many boundaries. If you are not sure that we are a good fit, or if you’re not in NYC or CO, no worries! We encourage you to follow us on Instagram and YouTube, or consider a virtual consultation. We have been able to help hundreds of people all over the country (and world) better understand, cope, and live the lives they want to live.