{"id":6339,"date":"2023-02-25T15:30:55","date_gmt":"2023-02-25T23:30:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/acupuncturecenterinc.com\/?p=6339"},"modified":"2023-02-25T15:30:55","modified_gmt":"2023-02-25T23:30:55","slug":"what-is-the-real-source-of-my-pain-or-disease","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.staging-wmplo.xyz\/acu-tom\/what-is-the-real-source-of-my-pain-or-disease\/","title":{"rendered":"What is the Real Source of My Pain or Disease?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Part 1 of the series: How To Get the Best and Quickest Results out of Your Acupuncture Treatments?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/a>Your healing, pain, and general health are deeply affected by your nervous system. When it is on overdrive from emotions like fear, grief, anger, the stress hormones released depress your immune system and slow recovery. A dysfunctional nervous system can be the source of your chronic pain.<\/span><\/p>\n

Acupuncture is one of the best modalities that can address pain, calm the mind, lift the mood, and stimulate regeneration. It can help normalize a dysfunctional nervous system, which is at the root of chronic pain.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pain is considered chronic if it has been around for over three months. This is because the pain becomes hard wired into our systems. The source of pain:<\/span><\/p>\n

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  1. Mostly from irritation and inflammation of soft tissue.<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. The pain can be severe because there are over a million pain receptor sites per square inch of soft tissue.<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. This affects your nervous system.<\/span><\/li>\n
  4. The nervous system and your brain memorize the pain impulses.<\/span><\/li>\n
  5. The brain moves the memory into the part of brain responsible for emotions and memory, the limbic system.<\/span><\/li>\n
  6. This explains why intense feelings of anger, sadness, or fear can trigger, amplify, or create pain sensation even without a physical cause, or long after the injury has healed.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    No Separation between the body and mind.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

    Think about it. Circumstances in life can create a hyper-vigilant nervous system stuck in fight-or-flight mode. Even without any imminent danger. When the body is constantly bombarded with stress hormones, it will develop physical symptoms. Physical symptoms are indicators that you are being triggered firing up your nervous system, even if you don\u2019t feel emotionally stressed. The brain processes emotions and physical pain the same way. That makes it clear that there is no separation between the body and the mind.<\/span><\/p>\n

    If you don\u2019t recognize the mental-emotional pain or stress, your body will manifest them as physical symptoms. Patterns from the normal stresses of every life can be held in the body as tension. Stress does not always mean unhappy, sad, anxious, depressed, angry, or that you aren\u2019t living your best life you want to live.<\/span><\/p>\n

    We all experience the ups and downs living with our thoughts moment to moment. A person can be perfectly happy with no real-life stressors to worry about and then begin to experience chronic pain. Perhaps this person had an injury of a muscle strain, the pain is intense, and he or she is having difficulties with normal daily activities like putting a shirt or jacket on. If there is too much worry, and disregard for the time needed to heal, the thoughts circle around that there must be something really wrong. This person might start telling themselves that they aren\u2019t getting better, and that they won\u2019t be able to return to their normal selves again. They keep this pain and injury on the top of their mind. They may even start to feel angry and frustrated about it. Perhaps even scared. The feeling of sadness and grief may creep in as they long for their old self to do things they love to do but can\u2019t anymore. The pain is now associated with these emotions. There is the self-pressure, and pressure from others to feel better that isn\u2019t consistent with the time it takes for normal healing of soft tissue.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Pain makes us crazy. I get it. I\u2019m not pointing my finger at you. I\u2019ve been there. Even with everything that I know clinically, I have had pain that made me feel as if I would do anything to make it stop along with the need to find out the cause. When clinically, and logically I knew it was a soft tissue strain or sprain.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Tension is at the root of it.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

    Repetitive and minor strains are the worst. They occur from doing a common activity that you frequently engage in. \u00a0It usually begins while holding tension in your body<\/u> while doing the activity. Tension held in our body is mostly subconscious tightening of the muscles in tandem with holding our breath. Our breathing is not deep and relaxed. A fleeting stressful thought causes us to tense up. This is not a good thing when our muscles, tendons, ligaments, and bones need the blood circulation to deliver oxygen, and nutrients, and to remove waste products. With tension our nerve endings secrete inflammatory chemicals instead of feel-good chemicals, water, and ions. The inflammatory chemicals are sticky like glue. The tension becomes tight bands, knots, nodules, trigger points, and soreness. The shortened constricted muscle limits our range of motion. The knots, and bands further block the free circulation of Qi-energy and blood. Think of Qi-energy as breath, oxygen, water, and electrical conduction.<\/span><\/p>\n

    \u201cWhen there is free flow of Qi-energy and blood there is no pain. When there is a blockage of Qi-energy and blood there is pain.\u201d Old Chinese Medicine proverb.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Don\u2019t Ignore the Pain. It is a sign of tension and negative thought patterns.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

    Many of us will just shirk it off when we feel a minor annoying pain. The problem with ignoring the pain is that we don\u2019t remove the irritation causing the pain. This is like continually banging your head against the wall and wondering why it hurts. Eventually the problem worsens, and our body must scream louder for us to hear it. Thus, the irritation is both, the repeated activity irritating the soft tissue, and the unpleasant thought patterns. I would like to point out that inactivity, not enough movement causes just as much a problem, if not more.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Note that tension and thought patterns can come from good things too. For example, you are working on putting together an upcoming happy event like a wedding, or anniversary party. There is a lot to do, and you have a lot on your mind! You might forget to breath when putting your to do list together. You might be very focused and intent on the project and forget to relax your muscles and joints. You have tightness in your neck and upper shoulders. You bend over to pick something up, and bam! Back spasm. You can\u2019t ignore this type of pain.<\/span><\/p>\n

    So, the next time you experience pain don\u2019t ignore it. Reflect on what were you doing, and where has your mind been around the time you started feeling bad. Remove the irritation by letting the painful area rest from the activity causing the problem. Apply moist heat, gentle massage, easy dynamic movements with gentle stretching.\u00a0 Adding acupuncture can make a big difference as well. Let go of the thoughts that no longer serve you.<\/span><\/p>\n

    You Don\u2019t Know What You Did?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

    The source of the original problem could have happened within the past two weeks, or emotionally within the past year!<\/span><\/p>\n

    You might be dismissing something like staying in one position too long, standing too long, poor posture like excess lordosis (sway back). Perhaps you were sitting too long, driving too long, you were cold, or felt a cold draft. Perhaps you were picking something up bending over at the waist while rounding the lumbar, or bending at the waist while twisting, or reaching for something in an awkward position. Lifting something too heavy. Twisting the lid off a jar, wringing out a towel, carrying a baby. You were doing activities that can be disastrous like vacuuming, mopping, scrubbing the floor, laundry, dishes, making dinner, making the bed, and caring for others that require you to lift them. Now that you know these activities can be problematic you are dismissed from household chores! I\u2019m joking of course because somebody\u2019s got to do it. Realize that just about anything can be on this list! Do these activities mindfully with proper body mechanics, breath, release the tension, and stay present.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    Sometimes when you start feeling better, and then experience a really bad day, you can\u2019t figure out what caused it to come back. Perhaps during therapy, you may have noticed a significant reduction in pain, but still be in the healing phase. There is a chance you tried to do too much too soon causing you to suffer from a relapse. Therefore, before returning to pre-injury activity levels it is recommended to wait until you can do the activity without pain for 14 days. If it doesn\u2019t return you can consider the problem healed.<\/span><\/p>\n

    If the pain doesn\u2019t go away, or it gets better, but returns, or it varies up and down I will bet there is something you\u2019re doing that you\u2019re not aware of that is hindering the recovery. People will often exclaim, \u201cI didn\u2019t do anything, I don\u2019t know why it hurts\u201d!<\/span><\/p>\n

    Changes in Pain<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

    Changes in pain can be indicative of healing, such as a reduction in intensity level of the pain, frequency becomes less, and the quality of pain may change. Of course, if pain worsens, comes more frequently, and causes more limitations in your life it is a sign that either you have had a flare-up from something you did, or it is getting worse.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Keep in mind that as your problem is healing there might be pain that varies in intensity. It might come and go. It might seem to move where initially it felt very diffuse that you couldn\u2019t pinpoint the exact pain spot. Then it becomes more focused at an exact point. Or, in the beginning there is extreme pain that is felt at a precise location. Over time the intensity reduces, and it becomes very vague.<\/span><\/p>\n

    The quality of how it feels might change from sharp, shooting, throbbing, deep ache to milder occasional sharp pain that leaves quicker. Discomfort of paresthesia or neuropathy can be numbness, tingling, burning, crawling, itchy, loss of sensation and proprioception. When the nerves begin to heal, and the blood circulation improves the sensation can be uncomfortable. It might be hard to decipher good bad from the bad. Pinprick test, light touch, and proprioception improvement might help you realize whether you are feeling the discomfort of improved Qi-energy and blood flow.<\/span><\/p>\n

    We can create stress and tension from: <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

    Common pent-up emotions and maladaptive coping mechanisms. These things cause us to tense our muscles.<\/span><\/p>\n