You are experiencing pain. This could be from a recent injury or maybe you pushed too hard in a workout class. Maybe this pain came on suddenly with a movement, or maybe it’s been slowly settling in over the last couple of days or weeks. Maybe this is a pain you have had for awhile. Regardless, it’s bothering you and you want to do something to make it feel better. Physio can help!

First, a little bit about pain. Pain is an unpleasant sensation or discomfort that we all experience at one point or another. We can feel it in a variety of different ways – sharp, dull, achy, electric, firey, zingy – you name it! Pain is a signal from your brain, telling you that something is or could be wrong. Pain is a threat detector or alarm system, like a smoke detector. It is designed to go off when there is tissue damage (FIRE!) so that we take action and change our behaviour (put the fire out)! But, it can also be a sensitive system that goes off when we make toast or fry onions – no fire, no tissue damage, but the alarm still goes off.

This does not mean the pain is “all in your head”. No one wakes up and thinks, “Well, I think I’m going to have intense pain today that will stop me from doing the things I love to do”. The brain is just where all the pieces come together:

– signals coming up to the brain from the muscles, tissues and gut to tell us how it’s doing (ie tight, tired, injured, bloated, inflamed.. or maybe strong, flexible, chugging along nicely)

– signals coming into the brain from the environment around us (ie I am in a (un)safe environment, I can see the nail through my boot, there is no blood etc)

– signals pinging around in our brain about past injuries and beliefs (ie this happens every time I deadlift; my Aunt hurt her shoulder like this and needed surgery; no pain no gain)

So how do you know what your pain means – am I injured or not? What do I do about it?

During a Physiotherapy Assessment, we can go through a thorough movement analysis, looking at how you are moving and what actions might be painful, and which ones feel better to you. We also go through a complete health and lifestyle history. This is to help determine what was going on when your pain started and to look at other factors apart from muscle tension, weakness or injury, that can contribute to how sensitive your alarm system is – sleep, nutrition, stress and your beliefs.

Our Physio treatment plan will revolve around your goals and incorporate movement and training, lifestyle modifications and manual therapy if needed in a holistic, multimodal approach. This way we can work on decreasing the sensitivity of your alarm system from all angles. Let’s work together to get you back to doing the activities you love, ASAP!

For more information on pain physiology and how pain works, check out this entertaining TedTalk by Australian pain scientist Lorimer Moseley

or this quick video that explains what we can look at to decrease pain overall