By: Kelsie Mazur, DPT

So, you’ve got pain, you're worried that it's something you did, or something major is wrong, especially because it's not getting better on its own or even with exercise. Think of it like this, it’s kind of like driving around with the check engine light on.

Hear me out…

Pain is like the check engine light in your car. It does not mean something is broken, torn, worn out, kaput! It just means that something is NOT working the way it is supposed to and your brain is letting you know to change your behavior. That’s right, Pain is a useful signal! It’s your body saying to you “Hey, this motion does not feel great. I think there could be something wrong, I’m not quite sure… Can you please figure this out?” You might be wondering where the heck this pain signal even comes from though. Pain is a signal that our joints, muscles, and tissues feel (thanks to our amazing nervous system!)

Behind every muscle, thought, heartbeat, breath and so many more functions is our nervous system. Think of your nervous system as a crazy neural network of highway systems that run north and south from the brain to our body and vice versa.

Have you ever stood up in front of a large crowd, about to give the speech of your life and you feel you feel your heart “in your throat”, you may have to use the bathroom (or already did 5x prior)... well that’s your nervous system. And it’s quite literally nervous.

A pain response is no different from this feeling described above, but instead of feeling like you have the world on your shoulders before the speech in front of a large crowd, you may feel back pain after deadlifting, shoulder pain when reaching over head, or have a headache after a long day of sitting at your desk. Ah, ha! Your check engine light is on. Sometimes, Pain might mean you need to go to the mechanic (your physical therapist) to find out what is not moving well and correct it. Then your nervous system may calm down, the pain may go away or reduce, and you know what you need to do to keep it away. It’s not always about the symptoms though. We must look deeper.

We need to figure out and solve the PROBLEM that caused the symptoms. If we just keep turning the light off without figuring out why it's coming on, it'll keep turning on. This is where an excellent physical therapist comes into play. A second very important thought that I don’t want you to miss, is that instead of avoiding the movement, direction of movement, or position that brings us pain, we need to intentionally re-learn how to get better at these movements, direction of movement, or position(s) that we have the discomfort/weakness/pain/fear with. Pain is a signal that your body is nervous about what you're doing. We gotta figure out why, we have to be the ones that hear the smoke alarm, and then WE need to change the batteries.

Lastly, sometimes if you're super deep into this pain cycle, we call it Chronic Pain. This means the problem itself might be the nervous system - you've been in this cycle for so long that it's gone haywire and you're experiencing pain with things that aren't dangerous at all (this is pretty common).

If you or someone you know is bogged down by pain, limiting you/them from happiness and from doing the things they love, contact me at kelsie@wattagept.com or sign up here for a free injury screen and movement screening.

Understanding Pain: Is a major pain in the A**