When we think about how our bodies experience pain, it's often compared to how a machine processes information. Imagine your body as a machine that reacts when it receives signals of pain, just like how a machine responds to commands. In simpler terms, if you have an injury, the pain you feel is thought to match the number of pain signals your body gets. But as you might guess, pain is much more complicated than this machine idea. Our experience of pain is influenced by how we learn and understand things. To help explain this, let's dive into a story from our Contextual Healing program. We use stories like this to make the complex ideas about pain, pain relief, and healing easier to understand. So, get comfortable and enjoy this interesting story.
The Story of Learning from Pain
Let's follow the story of a scientist studying pain. Her name is Luana Colloca, a friendly doctor and researcher from the University of Maryland. But don't let her friendly appearance fool you—she's studying how people's brains react to pain by using a machine that gives small shocks. Does that catch your attention?
Her main interest is in understanding how our brains learn to feel pain. Do you remember the example of a lion we talked about before? The one where pain goes away because your brain decides it's not useful anymore, like when you need to escape from danger? Well, Luana Colloca wonders if we can teach our brains the same thing. In other words, can our brains change how they react to pain by understanding what's dangerous and what's not?
The Experiment
Imagine you signed up for a study to help you manage pain better. You go to the university, and a friendly woman greets you. She takes you to a room and explains what she's going to do. She tells you to sit in front of a screen—no need to worry. Then, she connects you to a machine that gives small electric shocks. You might feel a bit nervous, but you're still mostly at ease.
Then, it starts. Luana Colloca begins with small shocks, and you rate them on a scale from 1 to 10. She gradually makes the shocks stronger until you say it's a 10! Now she knows how much pain you can handle. The real experiment begins. Every time you get a painful shock, a red light appears on the screen. For less painful shocks, a green light shows up. This happens more than a hundred times. Luckily, towards the end, the scientist is kinder. The last 20 shocks are all green, meaning they're mild shocks. After seeing so many red lights, these mild shocks feel almost comfortable. After 15 minutes, the experiment ends. Like the others, you leave the room, not knowing that your brain's control center has been tricked.
What the Experiment Really Means
But what was the point of this experiment? It was all about finding out if our brains can learn what's painful and what's not. And how this changes how we feel pain. How did the scientists test this? Remember how the scientist was kinder at the end? Well, that wasn't exactly true. Yes, she showed green lights, but she actually gave you the strongest shocks instead of the weaker ones.
The interesting part is that your brain decided to produce the amount of pain that matches the green light, because it learned that this was the right level of pain. So, hold on a second... Did your brain really decide that the strongest shocks weren't painful? Just because of the green lights? That's correct.
What This Means for You
Dealing with chronic pain is complicated because most patients have lived with pain for a long time. Think about it—every time you feel pain, your brain looks around and tries to find things that might be causing the pain. In the experiment, those red screens were like the things that trigger pain. But in reality, the red screens weren't connected to the pain itself. It was the shock that sent signals to your brain's control center. The red screen only told your brain what pain level was okay. In real life, specific situations, objects, feelings, thoughts, emotions, or people can all be like those red screens. They make your brain think you're in danger, and as a result, your brain produces pain.
The Main Idea: Learning from What's Around Us
We get clues from what's happening around us about how we should react to pain. So, if you want to do something about your pain, you need to figure out what things trigger your pain. When you know which situations, objects, feelings, thoughts, emotions, or people make your pain worse, you can change those triggers from making you feel pain to making you feel less pain. Remember, even if the pain is really strong, seeing a green light can help reduce the pain. For people with chronic pain, this means that even if the pain signals from the body keep coming, the brain's control center can lower how much pain you actually feel. Sounds great, right?
That's the end of the Contextual Healing story. It's all about the brain's ability to change and adapt. This ability is called "neuroplasticity." Every time your brain feels pain, it's learning what's causing it. With enough repetition, things like green and red lights help your brain understand what pain level is appropriate.
Turning Red Signals into Green
So, remember, since you've been dealing with pain for a while, there might be many things in your life that your brain has learned to associate with pain. But there's hope! By identifying these triggers, we can help you change them from making you feel more pain to making you feel less pain. This means that even if the pain signals stay the same, the amount of pain you feel can go down.
One great way to find out your triggers is to track your pain using a tool. Our app's monitor (coming by the end of 2023) can help with this. By measuring your pain and connecting it to your thoughts, actions, activities, medicine use, and more, we can learn what makes your pain worse.
So, are you ready to change those red signals to calming green ones? Leave your details on our app page. This way, you'll be among the first to know when the app is ready, and you'll get a discount to download it for free. Join us and discover how to free yourself from all those pain triggers.
Join the Pain-Changer Journey
That wraps up our blog post. Thank you for reading! If you found this helpful, please share it with others so our message can spread.
Important Note: This article is for educational purposes only and is not personal medical advice.
References:
Colloca, L., Petrovic, P., Wager, T. D., Ingvar, M., & Benedetti, F. (2010). How the number of learning trials affects placebo and nocebo responses. Pain®, 151(2), 430-439
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