Live Pain-free

Dr. Lisa Skerritt, Dr.TCM, RAc

 

Contrary to popular belief, pain does not have to happen as you age, and you don’t have to learn to live with it. Pain, whether constant or sporadic, is your body’s way of telling you that something is wrong and needs attention. It is the alarm system in your body that is telling you not to do certain things; and to fix whatever is wrong. When we take pain killers, they mask the pain, which allows us to do the things that the alarm (pain) was telling us not to do. This can make acute pain problems become chronic pain, and chronic pain spread to other areas of the body.

Most of us have experienced this domino effect without having had a name for it. It started with a neck injury with whiplash from that minor car accident that you had in your teens. But you were sixteen years old, so although you just ignored it, it got better by itself. In your 20’s you begin having upper back tension and pain, and as the years go by you start to think of yourself as a “tight-shouldered” person, and sometimes you get headaches. More years go by and you are now not only a “tight-shouldered person,” but you also suffer from occasional stiff neck, and have developed a pain radiating down your arm.

This is the slow painful progression of an unaddressed compensatory pattern, but in our culture we call it “just getting old”, so we should just “suck it up”, and “push through the pain”, because “no pain, no again”, and “what doesn’t kill us will make us stronger”. We try to ignore the alarm, causing our muscles to tighten more; or we take painkillers, which mask the pain, allowing the domino effect to occur. The best way to avoid the domino effect is to keep your muscles and connective tissue loose and healthy, which will leave you at much lower risk for developing a compensatory pattern or straining the muscle, allowing you to live pain-free.

Pain is not a symptom that exists alone. Frequently with chronic pain, signals of pain remain active in the nervous system for months or even years. This can take both a physical and emotional toll on a person.

 

Other problems associated with pain can include:

• Fatigue
• Sleeplessness
• Withdrawal from activity and increased need to rest
• Weakened immune system
• Changes in mood including hopelessness, fear, depression, irritability, anxiety, and stress
• Disability

About 100 million Americans suffer from chronic pain – defined as pain that lasts longer than six months. Chronic pain can be mild or excruciating, episodic or continuous, merely inconvenient or totally incapacitating. Pain costs America $600 billion per year, or approximately 4% of its GDP. More Americans are addicted to prescription pain killers than heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine combined. Prescription opioid overdoses have become the leading cause of accidental death in the US, with someone dying every 19 minutes. The CDC is calling it an epidemic. At least one third of adults suffer with chronic pain, and very few ever find long term relief. Approximately 38% of the human population is in pain at any given time. These statistics are shocking, especially considering that most pain is preventable and treatable. I know this because I have treated thousands of people in the three decades that I have been in practice, and my success rate is higher than 90%.

Muscle injuries, including those from sudden strain; repetitive strain; trauma; inflammation; poor posture or maladaptive movement habits at play or at work; stress; lack of sleep; or any combination of the above, will produce tightness or abnormal contraction of skeletal muscles. The related fascia (connective tissue) becomes taut and bound up. Circulation to and from the muscles is decreased, resulting in the accumulation of the end-products of muscle metabolism, particularly lactic acid and potassium ions. These tender knots, called myofascial trigger points (TrPs), are contractions in the muscle, which create inflammation in the muscles, tendons and joints by causing micro-tears in the tendons which become inflamed; compression of joints and discs, which degenerates cartilage; and pulling and compression of the connective tissue, causing nerve pain.

Although 30% of patients seen in a general physician’s practice are there due to pain caused by trigger points, there is little emphasis in medical school on muscle pain and trigger points. Pain management has fallen through the cracks in medicine. Muscles make up 40% of the body mass, yet there is no specialist for muscles, while there are specialists for every other organ system in the body. Because of this, we have found very few solutions for chronic and acute pain. Patients with musculoskeletal pain are given anti-inflammatories, muscle relaxers, and opioids; and when these fail they are referred to an orthopedic surgeon.

Symptoms of myofascial pain

Surgery for musculoskeletal pain is, more often than not, unnecessary and ineffective, and often causes other problems.

Symptoms of myofascial pain include:

Back pain Headaches Neck pain

Rotator cuff (shoulder) pain Jaw pain (TMJD)

Tennis elbow

Carpal tunnel syndrome Hand and arm pain Repetitive Strain Injuries Pelvic pain

Hip pain

“Sciatic” pain (buttock pain, often radiating down the leg) Leg and knee pain

Plantar fascitis (foot) pain Tendinitis/tendinopathy Bursitis

Arthritis

Disc pain (bulge/rupture/herniation) and radiculopathy Frozen shoulder

Fibromyalgia

All of these can all be effectively treated by helping the body to repair and restore worn out, over used, and injured muscles, tendons, and ligaments in knees, ankles, and other joints; as well as tighten and strengthen old ligament sprain injuries. Using tissue regenerative techniques, we can assist the body in its tremendous ability to repair itself.

Simple massage techniques using a rubber ball, followed by stretching, can relieve most pain, and even resolve the problem completely. However, because myofascial pain is caused by tension deep within a muscle that travels through nerves and causes pain in other areas of the body, it is often difficult to find the origin of your own pain. Identifying the offending muscle, and its active trigger point(s) is paramount. Deep massage in the trigger point, with gentle stretching of the muscle, will gradually undo the knot and stretch the muscle back to its original length. The new demand given to the muscle by doing the stretch will encourage your body to replace the shortened collagen fibres of the connective tissue and fascia with longer, more elastic collagen fibres.

The process requires a few weeks of doing this routine 2 or 3 times per day….it only takes a minute or two. Just roll the ball for 30-60 seconds deeply into the contracted muscle at the tender trigger point, and then each stretch should be held for 4 or 5 slow, deep diaphragmatic breaths (breathing into your belly), allowing the fascia to release. Hold the stretch where you feel the resistance, and then inhale deeply again and allow the muscle to release further on the next exhale. The muscles and fascia will release a little more on each exhale. You can be as aggressive as you want with the ball, and you should try to roll it deeply into the muscle; but stretching should always be gentle, and is really about allowing your soft tissue to release on the exhales, not pulling or forcing the stretch. Try to empty your mind and relax your body as much as possible. If you are thinking about what you have to do at work later, you are becoming stressed and your muscles will not let go. The cure is in the stretch, and the stretch happens on the exhale, but we need to release the knot before the muscle will stretch effectively.

Lifestyle changes to speed recovery

Lifestyle changes will also help to speed recovery, and prevent recurrence of the pain:

• Improve your posture
• Reduce your body weight
• Exercise regularly, and stretch gently and consistently
• Eat a healthy, well-balanced diet, avoiding foods that cause inflammation or acidity
• Learn stress-management techniques – mindful meditation is my favorite
• Use proper techniques at work, and during exercise and sports

In some chronic pain conditions, if the trigger points are very deep, the muscle may need to be released with a needle before the ball and stretch can be effective.