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Making Sense of Pain
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Making Sense of Pain guides readers through 50+ analogies on the subjects of health, pain, movement, healing from an injury and more.
To sum up the book in 1 sentence: “It is absolutely imperative that every medical provider understand the power their words have to both heal and harm every patient they speak with.” |
A FEW SAMPLE PICTURES FROM THE BOOK
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Pain, Movement, and Graded Exposure
Pain
Pain, while unpleasant, is an essential part of life. It’s a personalized experience that’s heavily dictated by an individual's environment, context and belief system. With a primary purpose of protection and survival, pain can appear in all shapes and sizes. Some of these pain experiences appear to make sense, while others can leave us perplexed. Pain can prevent you from going for a jog if you sprain your knee. It can teach you that placing your hand on a hot stove is a bad idea. Pain can let you know to seek treatment if you have an infection or broken bone. Pain can also prevent you from getting out of bed if you dread your job or if you’ve recently lost a loved one. Additionally, pain can trigger you to change your lifestyle if you’ve recently had a heart attack. Pain can drive emotion and physical activity just as much as emotion and physical activity can drive pain. There’s a constant interplay between all aspects of the human body and pain impacts each person in a unique manner that’s one hundred percent dependent upon context and individual factors.
Pain, while unpleasant, is an essential part of life. It’s a personalized experience that’s heavily dictated by an individual's environment, context and belief system. With a primary purpose of protection and survival, pain can appear in all shapes and sizes. Some of these pain experiences appear to make sense, while others can leave us perplexed. Pain can prevent you from going for a jog if you sprain your knee. It can teach you that placing your hand on a hot stove is a bad idea. Pain can let you know to seek treatment if you have an infection or broken bone. Pain can also prevent you from getting out of bed if you dread your job or if you’ve recently lost a loved one. Additionally, pain can trigger you to change your lifestyle if you’ve recently had a heart attack. Pain can drive emotion and physical activity just as much as emotion and physical activity can drive pain. There’s a constant interplay between all aspects of the human body and pain impacts each person in a unique manner that’s one hundred percent dependent upon context and individual factors.
Movement
Posture is defined as “the position or bearing of the body whether characteristic or assumed for a special purpose.” In other words, it is the way someone positions their body for various activities. Those activities can include anything from sitting in a car to cleaning underneath your kitchen sink. One’s posture is the body’s position during any and all tasks. It is constantly changing and adapting to meet your current environment. When you confine your posture to a limited space, such as a car, there is minimal movement and adaptation available. Sore, achy, and fatigued muscles are a common result.
Traditionally held beliefs attempt to link “poor posture” or “bad movement” to one’s pain. However, when discussing the literature surrounding movement and tissue damage, it is evident that “good posture” appears to be mostly irrelevant to pain. In other words, the research does not support either “good” or “bad” posture. In Jim’s car example above, he was quite sore and achy despite sitting in what he understood to be “perfect posture.” Simply tucking his chin or using a small support in his low back would not have alleviated his aching muscles.
Posture is defined as “the position or bearing of the body whether characteristic or assumed for a special purpose.” In other words, it is the way someone positions their body for various activities. Those activities can include anything from sitting in a car to cleaning underneath your kitchen sink. One’s posture is the body’s position during any and all tasks. It is constantly changing and adapting to meet your current environment. When you confine your posture to a limited space, such as a car, there is minimal movement and adaptation available. Sore, achy, and fatigued muscles are a common result.
Traditionally held beliefs attempt to link “poor posture” or “bad movement” to one’s pain. However, when discussing the literature surrounding movement and tissue damage, it is evident that “good posture” appears to be mostly irrelevant to pain. In other words, the research does not support either “good” or “bad” posture. In Jim’s car example above, he was quite sore and achy despite sitting in what he understood to be “perfect posture.” Simply tucking his chin or using a small support in his low back would not have alleviated his aching muscles.
Graded Exposture
In physical medicine, there’s a common yet woefully misguided myth that the human body is much like a machine or car. This prevailing story paints a picture that depicts the human body as easily distorted, misaligned, with parts that wear out with usage. “Make sure to stay in alignment to avoid wear and tear!” “Those knees only have so many steps in them!” “Don’t lift overhead or you’ll tear your shoulders up!” This tall tale frames your body as if it’s a machine rolling off of the production line, with a set mileage capacity and depreciating in value from day one.
A myth like this makes a good business model for those who claim to be “human body mechanics,” as it requires regular hands-on treatments that “tune up” or “realign to prevent wear.” However, this misleading narrative plainly ignores the adaptive capacity for growth of living organisms.
In physical medicine, there’s a common yet woefully misguided myth that the human body is much like a machine or car. This prevailing story paints a picture that depicts the human body as easily distorted, misaligned, with parts that wear out with usage. “Make sure to stay in alignment to avoid wear and tear!” “Those knees only have so many steps in them!” “Don’t lift overhead or you’ll tear your shoulders up!” This tall tale frames your body as if it’s a machine rolling off of the production line, with a set mileage capacity and depreciating in value from day one.
A myth like this makes a good business model for those who claim to be “human body mechanics,” as it requires regular hands-on treatments that “tune up” or “realign to prevent wear.” However, this misleading narrative plainly ignores the adaptive capacity for growth of living organisms.
