How Does Our Body Respond to Pain Over Time?

Pain is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience that alerts us to potential or actual damage to our body. It serves an important protective function, and when our pain becomes chronic, it can become a longer-lasting issue that is more challenging to resolve. 

Acute Pain Response

When you first experience an injury like a sprained ankle or throw out your back, your body triggers an immediate and localized pain response. The nerves in the area send pain signals to your brain to make you aware of the damage and to encourage you to protect the injured area while it heals. This acute pain response causes inflammation, which can stimulate nerve endings and increase pain temporarily. But it also brings additional blood flow to bring in healing nutrients and immune cells. Acute pain usually diminishes as inflammation resolves and healing progresses.

Pain Tolerance and Endorphins

As short-term pain persists, your body has mechanisms to reduce your perception of pain, including releasing endorphins. Endorphins are your body's natural opioids that bind to pain receptors in your brain and mute pain signals. Endorphins give you a sense of euphoria (in some instances) and relief from pain when you are experiencing it. 

Over days or weeks, your pain tolerance tends to increase as your nerve receptors become less sensitive. Your body will begin to adjust to the consistent pain signals through a process called habituation. Painful inputs are still reaching your brain, but your receptors learn to process them better over time. 

Managing Chronic Pain

Unfortunately, when pain lasts for months or years, these natural mechanisms offer less relief. The repeated and constant stimulation of your pain receptors can make your nervous system more sensitive through a process called central sensitization. Your nerve cells become better at transmitting and amplifying pain signals, even from innocuous inputs like light touch or small movements. Those struggling with chronic pain can experience structural and chemical changes in the brain itself that increase how the brain responds to pain.

You can change how your body responds to pain!

The good news is that the nervous system has been shown to retain some neuroplasticity, which is a term that refers to the ability of the brain to adapt and reduce that painful response. For a long time, it was thought that the pain we experience was only based on physical damage done in the body - damaged ligaments or other tissues causing knee pain, damaged spinal discs causing back pain. However, research has shown that pain does not necessarily equate to damage. You can have one without the other. The other big thing that research has shown is that our pain is affected by other aspects of our lives: our emotions, beliefs, stress levels, sleeping quality, and nutrition quality. This can be a great thing - because it means you have a lot of factors that you can modify to help make changes in your pain.

What should I know about starting to move with chronic pain? 

The most important thing to remember when starting to exercise or getting back into moving while dealing with chronic pain is that your body is strong and capable! Starting with small gradual movements is safe for your body! Working with a physical therapist can help you navigate how to progress these movements and get back to being active the way you want!

If you’re looking for help with getting back to movement while dealing with chronic pain, we’d love to help! Feel free to reach out to us here, email us at info@districtperformancephysio.com, or text/call us at 202-022-7331.