Ascending pain signals, coming from the point of injury to the brain, and descending nerve pathways, signals from the brain to the point of injury, will influence or modify the effects of pain on your body.

Some of these ascending signals simply report the presence of pain (I hurt or I don’t hurt). Other signals report the intensity of the pain (It hurts a little or it hurts a lot). Still other pain signals report the location of the pain (My stomach hurts) or whether the pain is associated with an internal or external injury (My stomach hurts deep in my gut, or the skin on my stomach hurts). Other pain signals report the type of pain (It burns or it throbs).

All of these different pain signals are transmitted into the spinal cord through nerve pathways to the hypothalamus section of the brain. There the brain transmits the pain signal information to other specialized pain neurons, which in turn sends the information (descending signals) to different areas in the brain.

One area that gets the message is your limbic system—this is the emotional center of the brain. It leads to a feeling or emotional response. Another signal goes to your frontal lobes—this is the cognition/thinking center of the brain. It leads to thoughts or judgments about your pain, including anticipatory pain.

Once the physical pain system is activated, the anticipatory pain reaction can actually make your pain symptoms worse. Whenever you feel the pain, you interpret it in a way that makes it worse. You start thinking about the pain in a way that makes it worse. You tell yourself that the pain is awful and terrible, and think, I can’t handle the pain. You convince yourself, It’s hopeless, I’ll always hurt, and there’s nothing I can do about it.

It’s very important to remember that when you have pain, there are three components to that pain:

(1) Biological

(2) Psychological/Emotional

(3) Social/Cultural

All three components need to be treated, but the treatment plan for each differs. An effective medication management plan coupled with nonpharmacological interventions is the best approach for the biological pain symptoms.

However, using medication for the psychological/emotional symptoms is like having an infected cut on your hand and the only thing you do for it is find a color-coordinated bandage and slap it on. Using medication for the psychological/emotional symptoms puts you at risk for experiencing negative side effects from your medication, including potential addiction problems.

The good news is there are ways you can learn to identify and cope with your psychological/emotional symptoms. It is also important to identify any social and/or cultural beliefs/biases that could potentially sabotage an effective pain management plan.

To learn more about the importance of understanding chronic pain please read my article Chronic Pain and the Hijacked Brain that you can download for free on our Ariticles page.

You can learn more about the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System at our website www.addiction-free.com. If you are working with people in chronic pain or living with chronic pain yourself and want to learn how to develop a plan for managing the pain and coexisting psychological disorders including depression or addiction effectively please go to our Publications page and check out my book the Managing Pain and Coexisting Disorders: Using the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System. To purchase this book please Click Here.

To listen to a radio interview I did conducted by Mary Woods for her program One Hour at a Time please Click Here to go to listen to this interview.

To read the latest issue of Chronic Pain Solutions Newsletter please Click here. If you want to sign up for the newsletter, please Click here and input your name and email address. You will then recieve an autoresponse email that you need to reply to in order to finalize enrollment.

A surprising consequence of neuroplasticity is that the brain activity associated with a given function can move to a different location as a consequence of normal experience or brain damage/recovery. In the case of chronic pain this can mean that pain signals keep occurring despite lack of a trigger or tissue damage.

According to research published in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences (2001) titled Spinal Cord Neuroplasticity following Repeated Opioid Exposure and Its Relation to Pathological Pain; convincing evidence has accumulated that indicates there are neuroplastic changes within the spinal cord in response to repeated exposure to opioids. Such neuroplastic changes occur at both cellular and intracellular levels.

Unfortunately, most pain conditions in this country are treated with opiates—some research shows as high as 90 percent of people undergoing pain management are prescribed opiates. With so many people living with chronic pain and using opiates, these neuroplastic changes need to be better understood.

I like to use simple language and metaphors or visual images when educating my patients. Many people may not understand the term Neuroplasticity so I use the metaphor of the hijacked brain. I tell them the reality of neuroplasticity science is much more complex, but in essence what happens is that the brain forms pathways (called neuro-networks) that eventually become super highways—in other words the new neuro-network becomes more complex and elaborate. Another major problem is the deeper the trance goes the less obvious it becomes. In fact, our inner saboteur (AKA denial) often surfaces at this point and our problem can get even worse.

To learn more about neuroplasticity please go to our 2008 News and Research Archive and scroll down to the posting The Role of Neuroplasticity in Chronic Pain Management that you can download for free.

To learn more about the inner saboteur and chronic pain management please check out my article From Denial to Effective Chronic Pain Management that you can download for free on our Article page.

You can learn more about the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System at our website www.addiction-free.com. If you are working with people in chronic pain or if you are someone living with chronic pain and think you may have any resistance or denial and want to learn how to develop a plan for identifying and managing denial please go to our Publications page and check out my book the Denial Management Counseling for Effective Pain Management Workbook. To purchase this book please Click Here.

To listen to a radio interview I did conducted by Mary Woods for her program One Hour at a Time please Click Here to go to this interview.

To read the latest issue of Chronic Pain Solutions Newsletter please Click here. If you want to sign up for the newsletter, please Click here and input your name and email address. You will then recieve an autoresponse email that you need to reply to in order to finalize enrollment. 

The Three Parts of Pain

Biological: A signal that something is going wrong with your body

Psychological: The meaning that your brain assigns to the pain signal

Social/Cultural: The approved “sick” role assigned to you by society concerning your pain

Many people irrationally believe that: “I shouldn’t have pain!” or “Because I have pain and I’m having trouble managing my pain, there must be something wrong with me.” A big step toward effective pain management occurs when you can reduce your level of suffering by identifying and changing your irrational thinking and beliefs about the pain, which in turn decreases your stress and overall suffering.

Using a Two-Part Approach

Physiological and Psychological

Because of the two parts—pain and suffering—pain management must also have two components: physical and psychological. The way you sense or experience pain—its intensity and duration—will affect how well you are able to manage it. Anticipatory Pain is also a major psychological factor that must be addressed. The research on recovery from chronic pain is very clear.

The people that are most likely to successfully manage their pain do so by becoming proactively involved in their own treatment process. The chances of success go up as you learn as much as possible about your pain and effective pain management. One important component to help you succeed is understanding anticipatory pain.

To help you deal more effectively with anticipatory pain please read Coping with Anticipatory Pain that you can download for free on our Ariticles page.

You can learn more about the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System at our website www.addiction-free.com. If you are in recovery or believe you may have a medication problem and want to learn how to develop a plan for managing your pain and medication effectively go to our Publications page and check out my book the Addiction-Free Pain Management® Recovery Guide: Managing Pain and Medication in Recovery. To purchase this book please Click Here.

To listen to a recent radio interview I did conducted by Mary Woods for her program One Hour at a Time please Click Here to go to this interview.

To read the latest issue of Chronic Pain Solutions Newsletter please Click here. If you want to sign up for the newsletter, please Click here and input your name and email address. You will then recieve an autoresponse email that you need to reply to in order to finalize enrollment.