Finding and treating the ROOT cause of chronic pain by looking at the whole picture
I’ve put this blog together for those of you who feel like you have tried everything. Exhausted all options.
Many of the clients I work with have been passed from one department to another hearing multiple different opinions or maybe been told there is no medical cause/diagnosis behind their pain.
The problem then, is that you can be left in the dark and frustrated. You’re in pain, and you just want the struggle to end. Find out what you can do to recover or at the very least for your pain levels to improve.
I understand and have worked with many people over the last 23+ years who have been in this situation.
This blog will cover a number of different treatment options. All of which I have found to extremely helpful for clients over the years. It maybe that one or a combination of these are exactly what you need.
A Different Approach to Chronic Pain
The common view is that when we have physical pain, the answers lie in hands-on treatments (massage, Chiropractic, Osteopathy, etc.), operations, and/or pain medications. This leads to the common assumption that if they don’t work, nothing can be done; you’re just going to have to live with it. In my experience, that may not be true.
I initially trained as a McTimoney Chiropractor graduating in 2001, so I started my career in hands-on treatments (I de-registered in 2022 as my career evolved into other areas.)
What I discovered was that in cases where someone needed a few treatments, they improve after each session and the problem never recurs, then 100% in those incidences the root cause of their pain was purely mechanical.
The problem was, that this approach wasn’t the best for people who:
- Never improve with treatments. Either there is no change to symptoms at all. Or those who experience a temporary worsening after treatment only for the same base line to return.
- Improvement is short-lived, ranging from a few hours to several weeks/months.
- Must have regular maintenance treatments to stay on top of everything.
- Find that certain events/triggers will set your pain off again.
These are the times when your pain will not purely be due to muscle tension/weakness, misalignments, wear and tear, trapped nerves, disc prolapse, or inflammation. Even though these things may be present, a bigger-picture approach is required to fully get to the root cause and create lasting improvement. If this is you, this information has been written for you.
Do You Still Feel An Emotional Reaction To A Past Event?
If your pain started after a particular accident/injury/operation, does it bring up a negative emotional feeling, for example, fear, anxiety, or anger when you think about that event?
Do you still experience a feeling of shock?
The mere fact that you feel an emotion when you think about the event indicates that the physical and emotional are intertwined.
For example. You may have had a car accident and suffered whiplash. At the time of the accident, perhaps you were in shock as you couldn’t see the other driver coming. Maybe you felt angry with them because they weren’t paying attention. If you think about the event and emotions still come to the surface, those memories and linked emotions are stuck and being held within your body and can manifest as chronic pain.
There are several ways to gently release these negative emotions, often within minutes. When you release them, the internal stress associated with it is detached, and the loop stops repeating. You’ll now see those events differently; your body can begin to recover on a physical level, and other methods finally become effective.
Methods that are effective in this cases include PSYCH-K®, Systematic Kinesiology and Bach flower essences.
Has An Accident or Operation Created Chronic Tension and Pain?
This is a different perspective on the point raised above, as it isn’t related to the emotion but rather to the mechanics of an overprotective body.
Survival and protection are the main jobs of our body and brain, but sometimes, they take things a bit too far, and this can cause problems.
Let me explain with this example. Say you have a shoulder issue where you don’t have a full range of movement, lifting your arm is painful. This may be the after effects of a car accident. This is how that could happen:
One ligament for your liver (left triangular ligament) is in the area where your seatbelt crosses over your body. In a car accident, this jarring may cause the ligament to tense to preserve the position and function of your liver. After all, it is a vital organ. However, if this tension remains, it can cause pain and restriction in your arm and shoulder.
Why? Because fully raising your arm would create too much tension on the liver, which is attached to the tightened ligament. This ligament is also one of the attachments to your diaphragm beneath your lungs. So, your body protects you and your liver by causing pain when you try to lift your arm to prevent any harm to a vital organ. From your body’s point of view, it is better to survive, even if that means pain and restriction of movement.
The other factor to consider here is the impact that scars from accidents, injuries, operations, could be having on your body. The long term effects of scar tissue reaches much further than what you can see on the surface. Scar tissue is less elastic, it can create tension locally or create lines of tension that result in pain elsewhere. As an example one client had hip pain that was in fact caused by surgery to their lung on the opposite side of their body!
Here there are two options Barral Institute Visceral release work and ScarWork both of which are very gentle. Along with PSYCH-K® to heal any emotional memories of these events.
Is Food Causing or Increasing Your Chronic Pain?
Diet has such a major impact on our health, and I know you don’t want to hear it, but you may be eating foods that are causing a reaction, inflammation, and physical pain in your body.
I have personal experience of this. I was struggling with constant lower back, gluteal and ITB (top of your thighs on the outside of your leg) pain in my 20s. Turned out it was wheat. I tried all sorts, but only when I cut the wheat out did my constant pain plus insomnia and IBS fully resolve!
It was a revelation for me (at around 22) that it is possible to be awake for a whole day without feeling the constant want to sleep and need to lie down! I genuinely believed that was how my life would be forever. I had no idea there was a better way of living until I cut out the food completely!
I talk about this in more detail in this blog ‘Is IBS the cause of your lower back pain?’
Using Systematic Kinesiology muscle testing we can identify problem foods so you can exclude them and put an end to that cycle of inflammation whilst strengthing your system so that it can recover and become more resilient.
Does Your Body Need The Building Blocks For Recovery?
Do you often feel stressed out, frazzled or worried? Your physical pain may be related to life stresses.
For example, lower back pain can be related to feelings of insecurity, such as financial worries, threat of redundancy, relationship issues, etc. These can be past, present or future worries.
You’ve probably heard this and been told to “reduce or avoid stress”. Unfortunately, most of us cannot just remove the things causing us stress or worry. What you can do, however, is calm the subconscious mind. This allows you to see solutions or helps you to feel safe and secure in the here and now, and this can all help to resolve your physical pain. You can’t always remove the trigger of stress, but you can detach the link between the emotion and the physical pain and change your perception of the stress.
For these situations Systematic Kinesiology, PSYCH-K® and Root Cause Therapy are all effective approaches.
Does Your Body Have a Message For You?
Have you ever heard someone say your body knows way before your brain does? It’s true! Our bodies act as early warning signs, giving us signals that something isn’t right, physically, mentally, or environmentally.
The problem is that we humans have become very good at ignoring these signals and trying to treat the symptoms instead of getting curious about why. Think about some common sayings:
- …is a pain in the neck
- I feel like I have the weight of the world on my shoulders
- I just can’t stomach…..
Listen to the words you use to describe your issue. Often, the words we use are the key to finding and releasing the problem. We can uncover those pearls of wisdom and create a positive change or let go of the emotional/stress connection, which will allow your pain to subside.
Treatments for this type of chronic pain could include Bach flower essences, Systematic Kinesiology, and PSYCH-K®.
Any chronic pain condition has many factors, so it’s vital to look at the bigger picture when it comes to treatment. Digging beyond the surface and the symptoms to find and unravel that root cause involves looking at all aspects of you, your medical history, lifestyle, environment, etc.
Maybe you’ve already identified with one or more of the examples described above and are starting to realise how important looking at the bigger the picture is.
Helping You To Find The Solution to your Chronic Pain
Healing is a journey. Working with us, you’ll learn a lot about yourself and how you can have more control over your health and well-being than you may realise. Our aim is to empower you.
People suffering from chronic pain often come to us feeling broken and hopeless. It can feel like nobody has truly listened or looked at them as a whole to see how all their symptoms fit together and are interconnected.
You’re not broken. You just haven’t found what you need to bring everything together again.
Life happens and can leave its mark. However, this doesn’t mean the after-effects have to be lived with forever. Our approach takes everything described in this blog and more.
We take everything into account and identifying the best treatment for your chronic pain. We’ll take the best course of action at the right time so you, your body and your mind are ready for it.
This is about working at the right pace for YOU so you get the best results.
We work from our in-person clinic here near Kingsbury Episcopi, South Somerset. There is also the option for online appointents over Zoom for PSYCH-K®, Root Cause therapy and Bach flower essences.
If your would like to meet us first you can book yourself in for a complimentary 30-minute call with either of us here.
Further Helpful Resources
We have written a number of helpful blogs that give other considerations in the treatment of chronic pain. Here are a few you may wish to read and expand your knowledge:
How events of the past can be creating pain.
Links between life’s stresses and pain.
A 5-step approach to healing your digestive system.
Free guide – caring for scars.
