The Power of Pain
The Power of Pain
Chronic conditions- which patients report as lasting more than three months, often manifest over an extended period and cause problems for several years.
For example, habits create posture, which over time becomes structure that ultimately affects function, movement, and performance.
I’ve seen this scenario before: A client, who has been working at a desk job for decades, comes to me with low-back pain. They think the pain is the result of their bending over the wrong way once. But in reality they have been setting themselves up for a lumbar disc herniation due to poor posture. Bending at their lumbar spine ended up being their body’s path of least resistance—and its weakest point—so it finally reached a breaking point.
Unfortunately, the client usually won’t seek professional help until the condition creates a severe level of pain. At that point, the brain and the body’s ability to function have diminished to a decompensated condition, and normal motor control can no longer be restored by conventional intervention.
When disease or trauma strikes, and recovery is delayed, chronic nociceptive stimuli, such as pain, stiffness, numbness and tingling, weakness, and other signs or symptoms can result in impaired cortical relay of motor output and reduced activity of painful muscles. Movement and function become limited because the sensory- motor interaction is inhibited.
Effective interventions
The clinical consequence of remedying such conditions is to stop trying to restore motor control in cases of patients with chronic conditions. Instead, consider interventions aimed at kinesthetic guidance can be translated into behavior 30 times faster than visual guidance and several thousand times faster than audio guidance.
There are tools to help provide such kinesthetic guidance and address nociception-motor interaction. Applied appropriately, these can provide a novel somatosensory input to positively affect motor output. One can communicate with the somatosensory system through the skin and fascia, which is the richest sensory organ because it contains smooth muscle-like cells embedded within the fascia’s collagen fibers.
Kinesiology tape, which provides support while allowing full range of motion, is another tool that can be applied to the skin to provide kinesthetic guidance and normalize tone in the presence of movement dysfunction. Taping can decrease pain, unload tissue through decompression, and provide a novel stimulus to improve body awareness. Kinesiology tape can help key motor control centers of the body regain stability.
Foam rollers, stretch bands, and balls are ubiquitous mobility tools that can manipulate the myofascial system to normalize soft-tissue tone and remedy chronic conditions. These tools can address restrictions in motion that are seen at the joint and soft-tissue levels. Rolling, banding, and myofascial manipulation with balls can also help the body regain motion.
Look for our upcoming complimentary Kinesio-Taping and Movement sessions!!!
GET BACK TO DOING WHAT YOU LOVE- MOVE MORE, MOVE BETTER!!!!
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Contact Cathy for your free movement assessment!