Inflammation and Pain
Written by Phoebe Norris (Myotherapist)
How inflammation makes things hurt: generalised inflammation and muscle, bone and soft tissue pain
Where does pain come from?
Muscle, joint and other soft tissue pain can make life very unpleasant. But did you know that when your muscles hurt, the pain isn’t happening in the tissues? Pain actually happens in the brain. This doesn’t mean our pain is imaginary – pain is a very real response to threat. It happens in the part of the brain that we don’t consciously control – the primitive part of the brain that regulates your blood pressure, heart rate and breathing.
So how do we get muscle pain?
When one of our damage sensing cells (nociceptors) gets triggered, it sends a message to the brain. Pressure, temperature or biological substances can all be triggers. When our brain gets the message, it does a practically instantaneous set of calculations. It assesses things like our environment, our current sense of safety and our memories of similar circumstances. If the brain decides there is a reasonable risk that we are being injured, it sends out the signal “we are in pain”. The goal is to make sure that we protect ourselves from further damage.
What about inflammation?
Inflammation is part of our bodies defense system. Triggering the inflammatory process releases many biological substances. The goal is to remove injurious material so the body can heal. Some of those biological substances trigger our nociceptors. That means if we have a higher background level of inflammation, our nociceptors are more likely to get triggered. Those substances can also ‘prime’ nociceptors, making them more reactive to other triggers. Generalised inflammation can also irritate existing inflammatory muscle, joint and soft tissue conditions, like plantar fasciitis or bursitis.
What can I do about generalised inflammation?
Some people are at a greater risk of a heightened inflammatory state. This includes people with inflammatory diseases and people over 55, especially post-menopausal women. Unfortunately, you can’t change having those conditions. You can however change other risk factors including:
· Smoking
· Diet
· Alcohol use
· Physical activity
· Amount of sleep
· Stress
Naturopaths can also prescribe anti-inflammatory herbal medicines and nutrients that can be very effective for pain management.
What can Myotherapy do for inflammation and muscle, joint and soft tissue pain?
Myotherapy can help with a wide range of muscle, joint and soft tissue pain. Firstly, we investigate whether the cause of your pain a tissue issue or generalised inflammation. We then make a personalised treatment plan depending on the cause of your pain. For specific inflammatory issues (such as tendonitis) we directly work with the affected tissue. For generalised inflammation we use techniques that help down-regulate the pain alarm state. For either type of pain, we work together to improve your outcomes with achievable self care activities. It’s important that your manual therapist works strictly within your comfort levels to make sure treatment doesn’t cause more inflammation.