A life without Pain!

Our modern way of life is painful and getting more painful by the day.

Extrapolation of several recent studies suggests that around half of all adults, including over a third of younger people, are currently suffering from chronic pain; defined as pain that lasts for more than three months.

Sometimes statistics can pass us by, but just take a moment to properly absorb that statistic again…….. ‘half’ of the adult population are currently suffering from chronic pain!

And the problem doesn’t end there. It is known that prolonged activation of the body’s pain pathways eventually leads to changes in the brain and spinal cord and that ‘sensitisation’ builds such that these people are likely to subsequently develop more pain elsewhere, often without an obvious cause.

So, not only are millions of people now suffering from unremitting pain, but once sensitised, they are then increasingly more likely to experience further chronic pain and end up in perpetual pain cycles thereafter.

What then is causing such an epidemic of pain and if you’re in chronic pain how do you best overcome it?

“‘half’ of the adult population are currently suffering from chronic pain"!

Painkillers make no difference

Until recent times most people with undiagnosed chronic pain were given painkillers by their doctors, but in 2016, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), which advises doctors on treatments, said that there was “little or no evidence” that commonly used medicines for chronic primary pain made any difference to people’s quality of life, pain or psychological distress. In fact, they went as far as to say that painkillers such as paracetamol, ibuprofen, aspirin and opioids can do “more harm than good” and should not be prescribed.

Of course, common sense should have told us that widespread use of pain killers was generally not going to be a good idea. Pain is a natural defence mechanism used by a person’s body to tell them that something is terribly wrong and that they should seek out the causes and, in the meantime, limit their activity, so as not to make it worse. Blocking the pain pathways without understanding and addressing the root causes, was therefore always going to lead to more harm.

And painkillers also have some significant extra problems. As well as having many potential side effects, such as digestive inflammation, in America (and presumably elsewhere) four out of five heroin users started out by becoming dependent on opioid painkillers, only turning to the illegal drug when their chemically-similar, legal painkiller prescription was ended.

With painkillers removed from their armoury and with little understanding of the root causes of most people’s chronic pain, doctors now have almost nothing left to offer sufferers.

They can prescribe physiotherapy, but the waiting list is long and many people find NHS physiotherapy techniques only treat their symptoms and any benefits are therefore short-lived.

In some cases, they can prescribe anti-depressants where they suspect a psychological element or think the pain may itself lead to depressive symptoms, but like painkillers, anti-depressants hardly address the cause of anyone’s problems and tend to numb the mind rather than help it find a proper recovery. In fact, given their other side-effects, it wouldn’t be surprising if in the future, NICE also issued guidelines to say that anti-depressants can cause more harm than good as well!

So, the only thing left for doctors is to suggest rest. And yet, simply resting a problem without removing it’s underlying cause only leads to the body gradually shutting down functionality around the area of pain, rather than returning to its former abilities.

So, if doctors can’t help you and, at best, they can only treat the symptoms of your chronic pain, what can you otherwise do?

To me, the answer seems clear: you need to better understand and remove the root causes.

As an Osteopath and Naturopath of over twenty years, it seems pretty obvious that the root causes lie mainly in our modern lifestyles, with their ever-increasing number of physical, biochemical and mental micro-stresses.

Typically, physical micro-stresses for most people involve things like repetitively sitting on chairs and at desks and using screens, driving, repetitive working activities and unnatural sporting actions. They also come from old injuries that remain dysfunctional due to poor functional rehabilitation.

Most people’s biochemical micro-stresses come from regularly eating processed foods, drinking alcohol, taking medications and inhaling pollutants. In fact, anyone continually putting anything unnatural in their body will eventually experience some kind of chronic compensation.

And, most people’s mental micro-stresses come typically from the myriad anxieties, fears and irritations that the modern world now continually throws at us, particularly ones that we feel trapped by.

On their own, each of these micro-stresses might seem innocuous, but when added together they start to become more significant. However, it’s not even the stress itself that’s the main problem, (after all life has always had its stresses), it’s the persistence.

When a stress becomes persistent (such as sitting at a computer, eating unnatural foods or being anxious every day), it eventually leads to chronic compensations and its these chronic compensations that wear down our durability and eventually lead to dysfunction and pain.

Whenever there is stress in the body, the brain contracts protective muscles around it. In the natural world most irritations are short-lived, but in modern humans these stresses are often persistent and so too are the muscle contractions around them.

When a muscle contracts it shortens, squeezing all the tissues in its range, creating pockets of compression where blood cannot flow freely, tissues can’t drain properly and organs can’t function optimally. Joints are compressed such that their cartilaginous surfaces wear more easily, discs in the spine have fluid squeezed out of them, making them more brittle, and the shortened muscles themselves lead to mechanical disadvantages that create inefficiency, asymmetries and gait issues leading to secondary physical stresses in backs, necks, knees, hips, jaws, heads, in fact, all and any area of physical function.

Furthermore, contracting these protective muscles all day uses up large amounts of energy and resources leading to fatigue and diminishing already scarce nutrient stores.

In other animals, unless they have a current injury, their muscles only contract when they need to use them and otherwise remain relaxed.

In humans, it is quite clear, from having seen thousands of patients, that most people now carry enormous amounts of compensations in their bodies, i.e., myriads of overlapping protective muscle contractions that remain contracted 24 hours a day, for months and years, often forever.

And to me, these patterns are unquestionably caused by our individual micro-stress profile.

So, how do you know whether you’ve got protective muscle contractions and if so, how do you know how bad they’ve got?

Easy!

Because shortened protective muscles can no longer relax to their full length, a person with lots of micro-stress compensations will lose flexibility.

A healthy, unstressed person should be able to do a forward bend and easily put their hands flat on the floor in front of them, they should be able to squat easily with their heels on the floor and work for at least an hour in front of them, they should be able to kneel easily and sit on the floor between their heels, they should be able to twist fully so they can see over their opposite shoulder.

In fact, studies have found that being able to go from standing to a sitting, crossed legged position on the floor without using your hands and then get up again unaided, is an excellent predictor of whether you are still functioning properly.

If you can’t easily do these things then you are already in deep compensation and the worse you are at them, the closer you are to the chronic issues and pain that go with the consequences.

And even older people should be able to do these things. In my twenties and thirties i lived in China, studied in Japan and visited Africa and invariably most older people could still do these things. It is only in countries where people perpetually sit in chairs and live modern Western lifestyles that this kind of unnatural inflexibility sets in.

Aside from lost flexibility, a person with biochemical micro-stresses may also have contracted muscles around their organs, e.g., painful spots or knots in their abdomen or pelvis, or their ribcage may become stiff. And a person with a tense mind may also have additional associated tense parts of their body, such as around their neck and shoulders or around their stomach.

Because the micro-stresses that cause chronic pain are generally insidious, they are therefore not obvious to most people on a day-to-day basis and people are prone to either ignoring them or believing that they will never amount of anything. But, if the stresses occur nearly every day then they slowly accumulate in the background until eventually they reach a person’s individual tolerance thresholds.

For most people the underlying causes of their pain are consequently not obvious. Even when they think they can identify a single event that preceded their first experience of their pain, it usually turns out to be something that they had done many times before and so was probably just the final straw that pushed their already compromised body over the edge.

But chronic pain is not inevitable. Whether we realise it or not, the causes are generally self-inflicted and so they are also within our control to avoid or undo them. Those trapped in modern ways of living may feel that they have no way out and trying to make different choices from other people may seem daunting and sometimes against their social instincts. But it is possible.

Conversely, the cost of not changing may be more daunting.

People who keep living life to the current formula, must surely expect the same or worse results than we’re seeing now and accept that chronic pain may eventually blight their lives, forcing them to gradually withdraw from activities they enjoy or need to do, forcing them to take medications, become more vulnerable to illness and limit the productivity of their lives.

So, what might change look like?

A life without pain is probably one where desks and screens are peripheral rather than central to a person’s life, where they are drawn more to natural healthy foods than processed foods and where they can more easily step back from their worries and mental stresses in order to put them in context and let them go.

Those who buy into or know no other way than the modern system of living and working will think that this is impossible and indeed, for them, it probably will be, but for those who are desperate for a better life, the best way may be to see it as emigrating from one personal culture to another.

Research shows that people who move from one country to another, initially take their health outcomes and life expectancy with them, but over years and with new generations they gradually assume the same health and life outcomes as people in their new country. The same is true of people’s personal way of living.

Just as it may seem daunting to move to another country, to leave everything familiar behind, to live and work differently, do things differently and integrate into a new community, so fundamentally changing your lifestyle will inevitably bring the same challenges.

But those who are brave enough to make big changes, be different from other people, seek out new understanding and be willing to persist at it, will eventually settle in to their new way of life and will ultimately reap the rewards.

Postscript

Over the past 20 years, I have found that the source of most people’s chronic pain can be understood and can be addressed. It takes insight and time and unfortunately very few medical people or therapists seem to have the knowledge or skills to do it, but it can be done.

Of course, the longer chronicity has been building the longer it will take to undo it, but the causes can be identified and ameliorated, the chronic and fibrosed tissues can be broken down and better biomechanics and organ function can be restored.

In my practice, whilst dealing with a person’s immediate source of pain is usually the obvious first step, I then attempt to go beyond that point to further break down underlying dysfunction, create resilience and recover a person’s true potential. It is an on-going process that can take months and sometimes years, but it brings ever-increasing levels of wellbeing.

That may sound daunting, but there is no other quick fix I know of and the medical world has nothing else to offer. In fact, following a conventional medical route will invariably lead to having to rely on pharmaceuticals and ineffective medical procedures that may end up doing you more harm than good.

But without doubt, the most important advice I have for people who want to avoid chronic pain and creeping dysfunction is to start now, even when they don’t currently have acute issues. If they wait until they’re older then the process of recovery inevitably takes longer, is more difficult and they’ll have wasted more unnecessary years in sub-health. But if they catch things early and redesign their life accordingly, they can experience good health and function well into their old age and have no need to rely on the increasingly ‘unreliable’ medical system.

If you would like to assess your levels of micro-stress compensation and understand how that might relate to your current wellbeing and where it might eventually lead you, then book in for an assessment with me or take a look at my guide to physical transformation.