6

Pain

PAIN IS A BAD THING. The human nervous system is unfortunately supremely sensitive, and wholly inaccurate. As you have certainly realized, pain isn’t always proportionate to the degree of damage. A hangnail can feel excruciating. Migraine pain is the worst I’ve ever felt, and terminal cancer can give us no pain at all. I won’t go into the reason for this here but will instead talk about how to stop severe pain.

Clients often ask me if it is better to struggle through pain or take a painkiller. Pain itself creates horrible compensations in the body, and walking around in pain, aside from being stressful and tiring, will create bad habits that will not necessarily resolve when the pain goes away.

So should you take a painkiller? Painkillers, on the one hand, all have side effects, and they have a rebound, so when you stop taking them, your pain is worse. They will also dull the whole brain and nervous system to some extent.

So neither state, sedated or in agony, is ideal. There are some harmless natural ways to relieve pain, though, so try these first. They will not completely numb pain, which I think is actually a good thing. Pain is actually doing us a service by letting us know that something is wrong. Most of us can stand mild pain (discomfort), not acute pain.

If these remedies don’t work, and you have a diagnosis of your problem, take something relatively safe to numb the pain and take as little of it as you can. But don’t suffer more than you need to. Suffering may be good for the soul, but it’s bad for the body.

Short Cut 1: If you cannot, or don’t want to take medications, you can use turmeric or ginger or both as natural, safe anti-inflammatories. Turmeric works quite well for arthritis and bursitis, and both herbs have antioxidant and other good properties. You will need standardized turmeric, containing at least 350 mg of curcumeroids, per day. Of course, consult your doctor or health professional first.

Short Cut 2: Use a negative electricity charge. This is an old remedy that also works quite well. I knew it from years ago as a kid in England and saw it mentioned in Alternatives newsletter in an improved version. You can make your own negative electricity charge in this way:

Go to a plumbing supply store and get a thin piece of PVC pipe, about 1 inch in diameter and 1 inch long—it doesn’t matter that much exactly how big the pipe is. Then create a good static charge by rubbing the PVC pipe against a piece of fake fur or similar synthetic for thirty seconds or so. The pipe will be crackly and hot when it’s charged. Place the static (negative) charge on the painful area. Pain and inflammation have a positive charge, so the negative charge of the homemade static device will cancel out the pain temporarily. You don’t need to rub the pipe on the area, unless it is a big area; just leave it there, tucking it inside clothing or tying it to the painful place, for at least ten minutes.

This is a much better method than the one I knew, which involved rubbing shoes against carpet (!) and was impractical.

STRUCTURAL METHODS

If you feel a pull in some part of your body that is beginning to tighten up, your tendency is probably to stretch away from the pulled area. If stretching loosens it up, fine. It often doesn’t, sometimes causing more pain later on (remember the Golgi tendon reflex?). We can use the stretch reflex to our advantage.

Move into the pull, maybe stretching the other side. At a certain point, the muscle that’s pulled will not hurt or have any sensation at all. Beyond that point, you may experience a feeling of compression. You don’t want that, so stay in the place of no sensation in that area, focusing your mind there and imagining blood moving into it. Then gently ease back, perhaps not all the way.

The pull is a jitsu. Moving away from it intensifies it, creating more jitsu. That jitsu may travel full circuit and release into kyo. Leaning into it decreases sensation, giving us the kyo, which is also the hidden, opposite movement under the jitsu. The kyo fills (imagining blood flow, focusing on it), and the jitsu releases. To be specific, consider these structural methods:

1. If the left side of your neck hurts, move your head toward the left. Try to move into the angle of the pain—diagonal, lateral, or whatever—until you feel the compression. Move slightly toward neutral, and in the place of no sensation, stay for 90 seconds (muscle memory time, see here).
2. If the pain is in a muscle that has an identifiable opposite—such as the inner and outer thigh, calf and shin, back and front of body, sides of body, inner and outer wrist—and you can move into the painful place without an excessive increase in pain and also find the right spot of “no sensation” fairly easily, use this method.
3. If not, you can try “sandwiching”—that is, working the muscles above and below or opposite the painful area. Use weights or other strength resistance systems that can effectively isolate these muscles.

So for neck pain on one side, you use resistance on the other side. Or you could use the upper back muscles. For upper back pain, try the chest muscles. For lower back pain, the abdominal muscles are the obvious choice, but the stretching of the lower back involved in forward flexion may hurt, so I would go to hamstrings and upper back.

If you know anatomy, you can use the agonist/antagonist relationship. Strangely enough, sometimes stretching the opposing muscles works, so you could try both ways. This can also be a more permanent method of addressing pain, and some of the exercises given in the second part of this book use this principle.

HOW WE REACT TO PAIN AND WHAT WE CAN DO ABOUT IT

The natural reaction to pain is to fold into the painful area, to protect it. This reflex does have a useful function when used purposefully, but most of the time collapsing and sinking into a painful area will make it hurt more, create compensations, and cut off the blood, nerves, and lymph flow needed for healing.

For example, if you have low back or hip pain, your tendency will probably be to sink and sag into your lower body when standing and sitting. Instead, try tightening your abdominals and stretch the lower ribs away from the pelvis. You can walk this way if you have severe lower back pain or sciatica, and you will find that you have created a lot more space for the hip joint to move in. You may be able to move your legs more freely, perhaps even without pain. Lift up out of the painful area with muscle contraction, actively stretching the spine away from the ground.

Wheels and Spokes

D. came to me with horrible pain in her shoulder. I explained to her what a rotator cuff injury is: The shoulder joint is like a wheel with four spokes, each of which is the four rotator cuff muscles. It’s a shallow joint so we can move it around extensively. The arm bone (humerus) is primarily attached by muscles. If one of the rotator cuff muscles is tight, is weak, or doesn’t move properly, it’s as though the wheel has one spoke shorter than the others. What would happen to the movement of the wheel if one of the spokes was broken? That’s what happens to your shoulder joint as it moves around—it’s the axis of the wheel. This image is not anatomically that accurate—look at an anatomy book! It’s actually much more complicated than that, but the image works well to give a feeling and understanding of the movement. D. “got it” and started moving her shoulder around, sensing the movement of the joint, tuning in, shifting it. It was actually in a slightly better place when she rested it again. The image of the wheel and spokes got her to connect to her shoulder again, beginning to heal it.

Sending awareness to an area, as opposed to thinking about it, literally sends blood and nerve energy into a painful place, and that alone will start to heal it. I think a lot of the healing power of bodywork functions in this way. The brain “forgets” traumatized (injured or painful) places after enough compensation has set it. Just as in psychological trauma, healing can’t happen until feeling is restored. When the brain acknowledges and reclaims the deadened places, the connections that are re-formed will, on their own, bring healing.

Awareness is different from thinking about, or worrying about, a pain. That removes consciousness from the pain and attempts to control it. Awareness is the placing of consciousness in the area and is neutral and somewhat open ended in focus. A very simple working knowledge of the basic structural mechanics of the body and its logic helps us connect with painful areas. We are empowered when we are in the body, not outside judging it, worrying about it, or getting mad at it.

D. was worrying about her shoulder when she came in; she was not “in” it. I opened the arm back behind her head as she lay on her back (if necessary, I would have supported her elbow with a pillow) and worked the ribs in the armpit and the inner aspect of the shoulder blade. This position allowed me easy access into the joint itself. If the joint is not positioned correctly, it feels like there is a little ledge, a step, at the inner-upper part of the shoulder blade—that’s the part of the shoulder joint winging forward. After loosening the rotator cuff muscles and the general area, I gently pushed the small “step” back into place. This is a type of “nonforce” adjustment, called nonforce because it is slow and does not use momentum (unlike most chiropractic adjustments). It is an adjustment because it does move the joint directly, involving bone as well as muscle. After this adjustment to the shoulder, D. could feel the “wheel” was tracking better. And instead of worrying about her shoulder, she now had awareness of it.

You can move the “step” back into place yourself by stretching the inner part of the shoulder and working the rotator cuff muscles. Because of its shallow nature and mobility, the shoulder joint is easier both to correct and to damage than the other joints.