No Pain, No Gain

It’s by accident I work in ‘safety’.[1] Not by design.

More than 20 years ago I received a workplace back injury. ?This back injury wasn’t my first. However, it was significant.

At the time there was talk of long-term damage, of what I would not be able to do again, what I would have to give up, the potential impact on my ability to walk, and what I had to be extremely cautious about. There was talk of surgery, of spinal fusion, of permanent disc damage.

And there was pain, lots of pain. Out of all that one overriding memory is the very real sense of fear. I became frightened to move, to sneeze, to cough, sit for too long, move – twist; getting out of bed was often a logistical nightmare punctuated by silent screams.?Even planned exercise was fraught with everything that would and could go wrong. And then afterwards, the pain.

Folks, you can see how the taught narrative and dialogue I was exposed to from intensive initial assessments and then during more than 2 to 3 years of treatment and physio had locked-in my own internal dialogue, understanding and, importantly, my beliefs about the injury, about pain, and also set the perception of what I had lost.

It stopped me. And, as relatively small accidents can do, it changed how I lived my life. It changed what I thought I would be capable of doing.?I lived in fear of more pain, and the fear of finally not being able to refuse surgery.

The post(s) by Preventure, and by Scott Coleman oft hit a long sensitive nerve for me that really has elevated my education, exploration and understanding of what back pain, what pain, is.?Most importantly, it deconstructed the narrative I was taught and the narrative I had practiced.

Learning, being open, talking and listening and trial by application helps to break down pain response.?Around 2011/2012 after one particularly bad episode while back home in Edinburgh, I took a different approach and mindset to my back injury. I just didn’t have the framework to understand what it was I did, how I did it and why it mattered, and why everything changed for the better after that point.

I suspected; I just didn’t know. Long discussions with (and learnings from), experts such as Scott Coleman, James Ellis, Rhea Mercado, Shaun Cronin, and David Peterson have been of amazing help over the last few years to scientifically contextualise what I did and why it worked.

The key here is being open to informed expert alternative information, perhaps information that encourages you to listen to your body, what your body is saying. And then encourages you to 'engage brain' to really assess what you think you can and can’t do. And then encourages you to step out of that framework of negative internal dialogue and very gently move yourself towards being healthy and well again.

Below are the list of ten myths again from the original paper (original post link in the comments below) shared by Rhys Kennedy.

[1] The area we offer services in, and how we support and coach business and individuals (at 3 Points of Contact), is probably best understood very loosely as ‘safety’.?Please PM/DM me for further discussions on how that might work for you.?

• ?? Myth 1: LBP is usually a serious medical condition.?
• ?? Myth 2: LBP will become persistent and deteriorate in later life.??
• ?? Myth 3: Persistent LBP is always related to tissue damage.??
• ?? Myth 4: Scans are always needed to detect the cause of LBP.??
• ?? Myth 5: Pain related to exercise and movement is always a warning that harm is being done to the spine and a signal to stop or modify activity.?
• ?? Myth 6: LBP is caused by poor posture when sitting, standing and lifting.??
• ?? Myth 7: LBP is caused by weak 'core' muscles and having a strong core protects against future LBP.??
• ?? Myth 8: Repeated spinal loading results in ‘wear and tear’ and tissue damage.?
• ?? Myth 9: Pain flare-ups are a sign of tissue damage and require rest.?
• ?? Myth 10: Treatments such as strong medications, injections and surgery are effective, and necessary, to treat LBP.?

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