If you suffer from chronic pain, chances are you've been to a lot of doctors. The truth is, many primary physicians feel frustrated by pain their patients are experiencing, especially when there is no obvious medical source for that pain. Common types of chronic pain include back pain, headaches, neck pain, jaw pain, and abdominal pain. If you have been through a battery of tests, and your doctors have not found any trauma, disease or explicable source for your pain, it is likely you have what is called neuroplastic pain.
Neuroplastic pain occurs when nerve sensors in your body mistakenly send a danger signal to your brain. Your brain perceives danger, and your nervous system jumps into action. When pain is organic -- meaning when there IS a physcial/medical source -- this reflex can save your life. For example, if you fall and break your ankle, the pain/danger signal prevents you from walking on the broken ankle and causing further damage. Instead, your body receives the signal to stop walking and allow the injury to heal. Our bodies are designed to heal themselves. If they were not, we would bleed to death from a paper cut. If you experience pain for days, months or years with no obvious source, it is a good indication that your pain is neuroplastic.
In truth, this is excellent news. Neuroplastic pain can be treated. According to the Boulder Back Pain Study of 2021 (https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/2784694), 66% of patients who received Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT) for four weeks were pain-free at the follow-up. PRT is a new and exciting field, bringing hope to billions of chronic pain sufferers worldwide.
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