Explaining Pain

Pain is something many of us deal with everyday, whether it our own or working with others to help them overcome that pain.  At Elite Physical Therapy, we feel that it is very valuable for our patients to understand how pain works, and how we should deal with pain during the different stages of healing.  Chronic low back pain and neck pain are two very common cases where this new science is having a valuable impact.

This is a great video by Lorimer Moseley explaining pain and how it is processed by our brains.  Dr. Moseley and Dr. David Butler are definitely changing the way we think about pain in the medical professions.

The take home message is that with chronic pain, the tissues are often completely healed, but the brain still perceives pain.  In this situation, movement and activity are often the best medicine.  You can’t hurt anything so try to do as much as you’re capable of doing without going overboard.  You may just gradually improve your functional abilities while decreasing pain using this approach.