All Pain is Neuroplastic
Why your pain has not gone away
If you have been in pain for more than three months, you have what is known as chronic pain. And the chances are, you have been told it is coming from somewhere in your body: a disc, a nerve, a joint, your posture.
But extensive research has shown that in more than 80% of cases, the structural cause identified does not actually explain the pain. People with severe disc degeneration on their scan can be completely pain-free. People with no structural abnormality at all can be in agony. Why? Because they have neuroplastic pain symptoms - meaning their body is not broken and the pain is reversible. The scan does not tell the whole story.
So if the pain is not coming from your body, where is it coming from?
How pain actually works
Pain is an output of the brain. It is not a signal that travels from a damaged body part to your brain. It is a protective alarm that your brain generates when it believes you are under threat.
Think of it like a smoke alarm. The alarm does not go off because there is a fire. It goes off because it has detected something that might indicate danger. It is reacting to potential threat, not to actual damage.
Pain works the same way. The brain perceives a threat, whether physical, emotional or psychological, and produces pain as a warning signal. In acute injuries, this is exactly what you want. But in chronic pain, the alarm keeps going off long after the danger has passed. The nervous system has become hyper-alert, stuck in a loop it cannot switch off by itself.
What is neuroplastic pain?
Neuroplastic pain is pain that is generated in the brain rather than by ongoing tissue damage. The brain is a learning organ. It learns patterns. Once pain has been produced often enough, the brain gets very good at producing it, even when the body is completely safe.
This is not imaginary pain. It is not weakness, and it is not all in your head in the dismissive sense. It is a real, physical experience created by a real, physical process. The difference is that the process is happening in the brain, not in the tissue.
And because the brain learns to produce pain, it can also learn to stop.
The most common factor that keeps chronic pain going is the fear-pain-fear cycle. Pain causes fear and anxiety. Fear and anxiety increase the brain's perception of threat. Increased threat perception produces more pain. More pain produces more fear. The cycle feeds itself.
Pain is driven by a stress response. The other factors that drive chronic pain include unresolved stress, past trauma, emotional tension that has nowhere to go, and the accumulated effect of a nervous system that has been on high alert for too long. None of these are character flaws. They are patterns the nervous system has learned, and patterns can be unlearned.
How Neuroplastic Pain Reprocessing works
Neuroplastic Pain Reprocessing Therapy is an evidence-based approach that works with the brain and nervous system to break the pain cycle. By helping your brain understand that your body is safe, the alarm can finally be switched off.
It is not about managing your pain. It is about recovering from it.
The work draws on neuroplasticity: the brain's ability to change and form new neural pathways. By learning to approach pain sensations without fear, and by addressing the underlying psychological and emotional contributors to the pain, the brain gradually stops treating the body as a source of danger.
The No More Pain Programme
The No More Pain Programme uses Neuroplastic Pain Reprocessing to guide you through a structured recovery process. Most people start to feel a real difference within four weeks.
The programme is delivered primarily online and is tailored entirely to your circumstances. Find out more about what is involved.
Your Questions Answered
BACK PAIN EXPLAINED
WHAT IS CHRONIC PAIN
INJURIES EXPLAINED
Do nerves give pain symptoms? No, they don’t. They give other symptoms such as pins and needles or numbness but not pain.
What do we mean by Chronic Pain? Chronic pain is described as long-term pain symptoms. It could refer to something like Chronic (ongoing/coming and going) headaches/migraines, irritable bowel syndrome or ongoing structural pain such as back or knee pain.
What is an acute injury? The meaning of acute is extreme or severe and it's sudden in onset. For example a broken leg. There is no such thing as acute pain. A high level of pain does not mean damage or injury.
Do structural problems (for example, the structures in my back, elbow, shoulder, neck etc) give pain symptoms? No, they don’t. Discs or Cartilage cannot produce pain because they have no receptors in them so neither can send any messages to the brain.
Are there different types of Chronic Pain? No and this is because all pain is a symptom, regardless of where in our body we feel it. So, there is no difference in this respect from a headache or a pain in our back.
How long does an acute injury take to heal All injuries heal - the time just depends on the type and severity of injury. For example, a cut on the hand takes 10 - 14 days after which it's fully healed. A broken bone, however, can take 6 - 8 weeks to heal. Normally with a fracture there's a set rehabilitation protocol which needs to be followed for optimal healing.
What about Sciatica? There is a common belief that Sciatica means trapped nerve which then leads to pain down the back of the leg. But, nerves don’t give pain. They give other symptoms such as pins and needles and numbness but not pain. What this means in summary is that the pain you feel is not related to the diagnosis you’ve been given.
Why do I get ongoing pain? Ongoing pain is normally a response to what we have been diagnosed with and the things we have been told we can’t do because we might cause more damage. We then continue to tell ourselves the same negative message about how ‘broken’ we are and those message raises our stress levels (fight or flight). Because our brain wants to protect us it gives us a pain sensation to stop us doing the things we’ve told ourselves are wrong or dangerous.
Is there always pain with Injury? No there isn’t. Injury doesn’t necessarily mean we will have pain sensations. Our pain is entirely dependent upon the response our brain makes to this injury.
Ready to understand your pain?
If you would like to find out whether the No More Pain Programme could help you, book a free discovery call. We will talk through your pain history and I will give you an honest assessment of whether this approach is right for you.
