Persistent pain, an overview

Summary: Pain can affect all aspects of life. The good news is we can retrain the brain and nervous system to experience less of it. A video from the Joint Pain Education project provides an overview of strategies to decrease pain in the body, including changes to diet, lifestyle, thoughts, emotions and stress levels.

Pain can affect mood, stress, sleep and activity levels.

We know that acute pain is a protective response to injury that encourages tissue healing in the short-term; however, most tissue heals after three to six months, so what happens when pain lasts beyond this timeframe? Ongoing pain produced by the brain is less about tissue damage or structural change in the body and more about increased sensitivity of the nervous system. The good news is that, while a person's nervous system can become more sensitive in general, the brain and nervous system can retrain and become less sensitive to pain. One key strategy is to get the body moving at comfortable levels where the brain doesn’t protect by producing pain. Shifts in diet, lifestyle, thoughts, emotions and stress levels can also have a positive impact.

This video by the Joint Pain Education project from the Defense & Veterans Center for Integrative Pain Management provides a basic overview of strategies for healing and managing persistent pain.