Is that 5 specialists you’ve seen this year?
Got 5 different diagnosis.
You’ve been the perfect patient for each of them.
Followed every exercise plan to the letter, rarely missed a medication, and even gone through surgery and a steroid injection on your doctor’s recommendation.
Countless hours of physiotherapy. Massage. Resting.
Learning chronic pain management has been a monumental effort – you could have been qualified in 3 different jobs with the amount of time you have dedicated to it.
And yet you are still in pain. Is this some kind of sick joke?
You are not alone. The effort you have put in has been immense.
Your pain isn’t here because of lack of effort and the pain certainly isn’t in your head.
But here is what no one tells you: the most common chronic pain advice might be making it worse.
The Missing Piece of Your Chronic Pain Puzzle
Doctors and medical professionals have taught us that pain means our body is damaged.
But there is another way that chronic pain develops which affects 85% of chronic pain sufferers.
It is called The Mindbody Syndrome (TMS) – also known as neuroplastic pain.
Hypersensitive neural pathways generate this real, often intense pain, without tissue damage.
How I hear you ask?
Our brains have alarm systems that create pain to protect us from perceived danger.
The alarm is super powerful. Have you ever tried to ignore pain?
Blinking hard isn’t it.
When we view our symptoms with fear and frustration we are keeping the alarm system on – your brain send the message “these feelings are dangerous!” – and we start experiencing persistent pain.
The problem is that treatments focused on structural pain add to the fear-pain cycle that keeps us stuck.
How do I know?
Because I experienced 6 years of pain from TMS which only got worse following traditional chronic pain management techniques.
The solution? Breaking the pain-fear cycle.
Let’s start by unpicking 5 well-intentioned practices that perpetuate the cycle’s existence.
5 Chronic Pain Management Techniques Everyone Tells You to Do (That Make Pain Worse)
1. Monitoring & Tracking Your Pain
- What it looks like:
Rating your pain every day, keeping a pain diary, tracking symptoms on apps, and constantly scanning your body for changes.
- Why everyone recommends it:
For acute injuries and structural pain, this data helps you and your doctor track the healing process.
- Why it backfires:
Giving your chronic symptoms constant attention creates a state of hypervigilance and fear. And fear of pain increases pain.
You get caught in a vicious cycle.
- What to do instead:
When you notice a sensation, simply acknowledge it, “A sensation is here.” Take a deep breath, smile, and say, “I am safe even with this”.
Now, redirect your attention to whatever you were doing.
Do this as often as needed – whenever you are giving your symptoms attention.
The stretching that made my pain worse.
I spent 6 years obsessing over my pain.
Stretching for hours a day, asking constantly, “How will my body be?”, and checking if it was getting better.
I was convinced the time and energy would pay-off in long-term relief.
But instead I became terrified of every slight change and sensation in my body.
Stepping away from monitoring was essential for my journey to healing and living more freely.
2. “Please Be Careful”
- What it looks like:
Adapting your exercise, work, play, bed, shoes, chair, movements, postures… (the list is endless!) to your body’s perceived limits.
Family and friends reinforce this when they say:
- “Don’t do that”
- “Are you sure you can lift that?”
- “That must be painful.”
- Why everyone recommends it:
We need to avoid certain activities to heal from acute injuries and prevent further structural damage.
Also, if you saw a loved one in pain what would you say? Your family and friends mean well with their messaging.
- Why it backfires:
Every time you avoid or adapt an activity you send a message loud and clear to your brain:
“This is dangerous and my body is fragile.”
This reinforces the neural pathways that create pain from TMS and, ironically, most people with TMS feel better when they are moving.
- What to do instead:
Practice graded exposure.
This is a way to re-engage with the activities you have been avoiding.
Use affirmations and messages of safety, “I am safe”, to calm the brain as you start these activities.
Start small – I recommend imagining doing the activities until you have no symptoms or anxiety.
Then build up the amount of activity over time.
This builds up confidence in your body and rewires the hypersensitive neural pathways that are causing pain.
What Dr. Sarno Said
Dr John Sarno, the first person to identify TMS, was adamant about the importance of physical activity:
“Losing one’s fear and resuming normal physical activity is possibly the most important part of the therapeutic process.”
This has been key to each of my clients’ journey to recovery. Some take it slow while others re-engage quickly.
There is no stronger message to the brain that we are healthy than physical activity.
As Miriam, a wonderful TMS coach from PainOutsideTheBox says, “The end goal is to move without second thought!”
3. The Perfect Posture
- What it looks like:
Regular assessing and shifting of our bodies trying to fit the ‘right’ posture, doing exercises for alignment issues, and blaming pain on bad posture.
- Why everyone recommends it:
Well, if someone looks crooked they must be in pain, right?
Plus, every practitioner from a Pilates teacher to a doctor can offer postural treatments as part of a chronic pain management program.
- Why it is a myth:
Recent studies show no correlation between posture and chronic pain.
People with bad posture are often pain-free.
People with perfect posture often have pain.
In fact, nature created our bodies for variation rather than a ‘perfect’ pose.
For anyone needing more evidence, as this myth is has serious legs in our society, then this article is for you.
- What to do instead:
Shift your focus onto moving naturally and comfortably – whatever that looks like for you.
If hunching feels good, hunch it up!
Let’s rebuild our trust that our bodies know what is best for us.
Remind yourself: “My posture doesn’t cause me pain.”
Real Client Example
Bradley had pain for 7 years and was diagnosed with mild/moderate scoliosis.
You know the one? That’s right – the s-curved spine.
Surely that was causing their pain.
No, it wasn’t.
Following the Path Out Of Pain program designed specifically for TMS they freed themselves from chronic pain. Let’s hear from them:
“My win for life? I no longer have chronic pain.” – Bradley Salt.
Is this an isolated case? No, most people with scoliosis (except very severe cases) are pain-free.
If a condition that has a dramatically affects posture doesn’t cause chronic pain, smaller postural issues won’t either.
4. Dr Google/The Hunt for Specialists
- What it looks like:
Whenever a new symptoms arises, using the internet or seeking diagnoses from specialists to find the answer for your pain.
- Why does this happen:
We naturally want the solution to our chronic pain because it sucks to be in pain.
Early on we are taught that doctors have all the answers and more information is where the answers are.
And the internet is right there… why would we not have a look?
- Why it doesn’t work:
After ruling out a serious condition, seeking endless information and diagnoses beyond these checks leads to analysis paralysis.
You get bombarded by too much conflicting information.
It gets really confusing really fast.
- What to do instead:
Get crystal clear of whether your pain is structural or TMS.
Once you have ruled out serious conditions:
- Tumours
- Infections
- Inflammatory conditions
- Fractures
Then get a thorough assessment for TMS.
**I offer a comprehensive chronic pain assessment that is designed to help you get clear whether your pain is TMS – check it out HERE**
This gives you confidence to close Google, stop going to the doctors, and focus on tools that promote healing rather than more diagnoses.
Multiple Diagnoses.
No matter how many diagnoses you have collected like a squirrel hoarding acorns for the winter there is a strong possibility you have TMS.
In fact, multiple conflicting diagnoses is a sign of TMS as it shows that doctors can’t agree on a physical issue that is causing your symptoms.
So unless you have a systemic condition like cystic fibrosis or lupus it is likely that your multiple symptoms are caused by your overprotective and stressed-out brain.
5. Being the Strong One
- What it is:
Staying positive at all costs no matter what is going on in your life and being an emotional support even when you are not feeling fine.
Others often label people with chronic illness as ‘the strong one’ as they praise their ability to be stoic in the face of intense suffering.
- Why it’s valued:
Our culture rewards strength and independence. As children, we learn that selflessness and helpfulness are ‘good’ and anger, despair, annoyance, and sadness are ‘bad’.
- Why it doesn’t work:
Unexpressed emotions don’t disappear – they lurk in the nervous system creating a source of pent-up energy. This internal pressure is perceived as a dangerous predator by our brains.
The result? More pain
- What to do instead:
Find regular outlets where you can express the full range of your feelings. A particularly effective method is expressive journaling which allows feelings to rise and be seen as safe.
Dani Fagan from My TMS Journey has written a fantastic resource in how to get started with this potentially life changing technique that I highly recommend reading through.
There are many benefits to expressing our feelings beyond recovery from chronic pain.
That is why Nicole Sachs says, “Healing from chronic pain is the biggest littlest thing we can do.”
My Dad’s Story of Emotions and Pain
My dad lived with back pain and sciatica for 30 years, always being the go-to person for everyone in the family.
He never put his needs first as they were never allowed as a child.
It took getting a divorce for the light bulb to turn on.
He made his needs a priority. And with that shift his decades-long pain finally resolved.
That meant no more lying on the floor in agony, no more airplane migraines, and hanging upside down on the ‘back machine’.
He found his freedom.
Your Path Forward
Your chronic pain journey has likely been filled with disappointment, confusion, and countless treatments that haven’t given you lasting relief. This doesn’t mean that you are doomed to chronic pain for the rest of your life.
Instead, it could be a sign that you are dealing with TMS.
Great news!
You can reverse TMS, and it responds really well to non-invasive, safe, and inexpensive treatments that you can easily learn.
However, recovery requires you to shift focus from your body to your brain. This means breaking the 5 practices that we just covered and changing your relationship with pain.
Your next step is getting clear on what type of pain you are dealing with. Once you have ruled out a serious structural issue, a proper TMS assessment can give the confidence to start your recovery journey.
As Dr. Schubiner says: “Injuries heal and scars don’t hurt.”
Ready to discover if TMS pain is keeping you stuck? Download my free guide to learn the 10 key signs your pain involves the mindbody connection and start your journey to getting your life back.
You have my warmest of wishes till next time.
Ed