We made it to the final episode of I am a Pain Patient! Don't worry, though, plenty more content to come! Our next segments will be on neurodiversity.
Today we're talking about the orchestra of the body. Pain is the most advanced protective system of your body. When pain turns chronic, our brains get practiced at sending the pain signal. Pain is bio-psycho-social.
The things going on in our body are just as important as our psychology and sociological inputs.
Nerves
Nerves love Space, Blood Flow & Movement
There are hundreds of meters of nerves in your body
Cords
50% Ligament
Include danger sensors
50% Neurones
Detect changes in space, blood flow and movement and can ignite the danger sensors stored in the ligament.
Survival
If your body thinks that increased nerve sensitivity will keep you safe, more stress sensors are added by DNA.
Potential Injuries
Cutting, squeezing, pulling, irritation and sustained reduction in blood supply.
They change with age
Nerve injuries can be very hard to diagnose.
How do they move?
Nerves slide or glide!
Repair after injuries and desensitizing the nervous system.
Space
Blood Flow
Movement
Bones & Joint
There are a lot of misunderstandings about your bones and joints out there. This can contribute to misconceptions leading to fear of movement, pain or damage.
Here’s what Bones are
Living healing structures
Covered by a super sensitive outer layer prepared to protect you.
Inside the bone are danger sensors designed to help you stop and tend to your body should a bone break.
As living healing structures they can heal if there is damage.
Joints
Joint pains are described in mechanical view from the brain (idea of grinding)
The speed of change affects the brain’s danger processing.
Slow changes of aging are not perceived as a threat.
Abrupt change is received as dangerous.
Thrive with movement and regular compression.
Deterioration
Happens to everyone over time.
Break-Fix model of Chiropractic care
Inflammation & Inflammation Soup
Inflammation as a Defense Mechanism:
First alert
Brain
Your brain is immediately interested in inflammation.
Cut to the front of the line!
Starts the process to engage your white blood cells and immune response.
Through release of chemicals from the damaged cells.
Inflammation Soup
What starts as your first alert leads to continued swelling
Natural alarm to nervous system initiates additional nociception sensors to the affected area. <every three days>
However, starts a cycle that includes more swelling and more nociceptive sensors, elongating the presence of inflammation.
Anti-Inflammatories: reduce the chemicals produced in your blood cells, to help deactivate the first alert system.
Muscles:
Postural
Phasic Muscles
Muscle Mechanics
Muscles have many sensors
Muscles can become unhealthy & week, especially underused or misused
Muscles are responsive, & stretchy & are difficult to injure
Muscles receive great blood supply to assist in healing.
Altered muscle activity is part of the response to injury and threat.
Meant to be short-term alterations
Long-term can lead to under allocation of blood flow to postural muscles
Muscle activity is about making sense of the world and how you interact with it.
Skin & Soft Tissue & the Virtual Road Map
Skin makes up 15-20% of the body’s weight
Making it the body’s most critical protector.
This first responder adds to the roadmap of the body, present in the brain.
If you demand more of a body part, then that body part will have a bigger representation in the brain.
Skin over damaged muscle or tissues can become oversensitized to where little to no input can cause pain (light brushing or certain clothes). It’s why I can’t wear scarves.
Damaged skin heals quickly
Skin has a high density of sensors
Skin is mobile & likes to be mobile.
Fascia, a tough strong tissue, also contains a lot of danger sensors and lies under the skin
Massaged skin sends useful messages to the brain & refreshes the virtual roadmap of the body.
You are not alone, you matter.
Sensors only live a few days & are constantly refreshing
Sensors are constantly changing based your environment
Your brain can increase or decrease sensor production to promote health & wellness.
Temperature: more pain in cold temps
Stress: survival situation: cortisol
Blood Flow: moving blood to muscles we need to flee
Movement & Pressure: making your body more/less sensitive to movement
Immunity: Responds to inflammation
Why the Hiatus
Divorce
Wounds
Healing
Fight or Flight Mode
Healing and owning my story
I am more myself for having suffered.
Using these podcasts to write my book.
I am planning on becoming a certified wholeness coach in the future.
Therapy helps with healing from the past
Spiritual Direction helps us in discerning our future
Coaching is about achieving your goals and dreams
The Lord plans to prosper you.
Sleep is the first thing that your primary care physician will want to work with you on in your road to wellness. There is quite a bit that goes into healthy sleep hygiene and I'm sure there's even more than what I was able to cover here, but these are some of the fundamentals I have found useful as a chronic pain patient.
When you are assembling a team, a mental health therapist can be an incredibly important asset. As a chronic pain patient, my therapist helped me so much in sorting out my identity apart from my chronic pain. One of the car accidents I was in resulted in PTSD symptoms as well, so engaging EMDR and graded exposure therapies with a licensed professional were invaluable in my recovery.
Nervous System 101: Development, Autonomic Regulation and the Ceptions
Development: Efficiency is the goal. In Utero, the brain prepares more pathways (synapses) than it needs. After birth, as we learn and develop unused pathways are retired with efficiency as the goal. Our body is always sending messages, neurons, through myelinated nerve fibers to the dorsal root ganglia, where those messages are deciphered by the parts of our brain.
Unconscious Neurological Input: Autonomic Regulation
Proprioception: Body as a whole: balance, coordination and agility
Nociception: Danger sensors: 'Noci' means pain, and the brain references nociceptors first answering the question, "Am I in Danger?"
Exteroception: Environment, in which our five senses contribute
Interoception: internal systems: digestion, breath regulation, hunber, digestion, acute ailments
So there's me, and the things going on in my body, as they relate to my environment and my body has to occupy a space in that environment. And at all times our brain is asking, "Am I safe?"
Nervous System 101: Today we are diving into the parts of the brain and the systems of our body.
Premotor Cortex: Organizing and preparing for movement
Cingulate Cortex: Concentration and focusing
Prefrontal Cortex: Problem solving and memory
Amygdala: Fear conditioning and addiction
Hypothalamus/Thalamus: Motivation, stress responses and autonomic regulation
Cerebellum: Movement and cognition
Hippocampus: Memory, spatial cognition and fear conditioning
Spinal Cord: Gating from the periphery
Dorsal Root Ganglia: Sensory loading dock
Myleanated Nerve Fibers: Neuron Super Highway
Neuro Tags: Aid in sending messages efficiently
Motor System: Fight or Flight
Endocrine System: Mobilize Energy Stores
Pain Production: Motivate Escape and Seek Help
Immune System: Fight invaders and promote healing
Parasympathetic System: Rest and Digest.
How can we pivot our perspective on our current challenges?
What sustainable changes can we make?
How can we ask our team to support and encourage us?
We spoke yesterday about the importance of Assembling a Team to support and encourage you. It is so important that we are going to dedicate an entire episode to talking about it.
1. Medical Professionals: My team of medical professionals included, a primary care physician, a chiropractor, a massage therapist, a neurologist, and a physical therapist.
2. Self-Advocacy: As you are working with these medical professionals, it is vitally important that you employ self-advocacy. Medical advancements enable us to hope for the potential to bring health and healing into our lives. However, we need accept that sometimes medical professionals make mistakes. They are human, after all. It is important to not only greet yourself with compassion, but your medical team as well.
3. Friends and Family: Begin the road to repair by being open with them about your struggles. What boundaries do you need in place to facilitate further healing? What do you need help with? How can you allow your friends and family to fill you up?
Today, I am going to challenge you to choose the you of today as your starting point. Now that we've addressed the natural boundaries of our memories, the call is to step forward boldly and not allow memories of our glory days to keep us from living our best life right now.
1. Know your "Why". It's the power of a mission statement, of greeting each challenge with a reminder of why this work is so important. Write it down, and repeat it to yourself on hard days.
2. Take an honest inventory of yourself. Humility is knowing things as they are in truth. Knowing yourself in truth, is an important first step.
3. Requires realistic expectations. Use yourself as your own model of true beauty, of true health, and true wellness.
4. Assemble your Team. Root for yourself, and invite others to do so as well. Who can you include in your now, whatever that means, and how can you allow them to support and encourage you?
We will start this week, by addressing the truth about our memories. Memories come with natural boundaries, as our memories are colored by our own perspective. We can only speak to our own experiences, and our own side of the story.
Our memory is directly tied to the virtue of Hope, which is vital to those of us in search of health and wellness. Let's flesh this out then.
1. Emotions can cling to sensory objects
2. Confusion and disturbances caused by our memories.
3. Be open to the Experiences of Others.
4. Confronting your Glory Days.
5. Resolving to Embrace Your Now.
Brene Brown talks about common shields that we use against vulnerability in her book, "Daring Greatly." In the life of a pain patient, or someone suffering with illness, these shields seem very attractive. Here are some of the shields she mentions in this book, if they resonate with you, might be something worth reading.
1. Foreboding Joy: Gratitude
2. Perfectionism: Finding Dignity in the Work
3. Numbing: Lean into Discomfort
4. Viking or Victim: Redefine Success
5. Over Sharing: Setting Boundaries in order to Cultivate Connection
6. Cynicism and Criticism: Reality Check
"Our fight or flight strategies are effective for survival, not for reasoning or connection." Brene Brown, "Daring Greatly."
Guilt: I did something bad.
Shame: I am bad.
Cultivating Shame Resilience:
1. Awareness of Triggers
2. Reality Check
3. Reach Out
4. Wrapping Words Around Shame
Overcoming hardship can only be done when we truthful about our reality. What things can keep us from being vulnerable in this way?
Burden of Reality
Fear of Rejection
Feelings of Shame
Vulnerability Is ______. Vulnerability Feels Like_______.
