The Pain of Moving House
Modern day pain researchers say that most stubborn treatment resistant pains are underpinned partially by stress. It is also observed by countless sufferers of back pain, shoulder pain, neck pain, hip pain, knee pain, RSI and foot pain that their symptoms are triggered by stress. And of course there are others for whom stress does not appear to be a trigger. When you treat pain for a living as we do. It is extremely noticeable that in most cases it is the people who are living with the most stress or the most emotional trauma who tend to be the ones with the most stubborn pain. Whilst some sufferers of back pain, neck pain and shoulder pain have less stress in their life, many of those have had acutely stressful things happen in the past that they have not fully resolved. Most noticeable of all is how much harder it is to treat people whose stress is elevated at the moment.
From our perspective as pain clinicians it is frustrating but also fascinating to see so often people who are quite advanced in their recovery (and who might not have had pain for months) still find that their pain relapses when they move house. And yet does not seem to relapse at any other time. The important thing about all this is simply that it may point more clearly to the best path towards better management of our pain. As a society we struggle with chronic pain every bit as much as we struggle with mental health. We just aren’t good at treating it. So opportunities to learn about the real nature of our pain are important.
If we take the lessons from this it might help us to take a broader and more integrated approach to our pain management. Those of us who have been taught to believe that the pain could be ‘all in our head’ might be more open to physical solutions that heal and strengthen the body. Those of us who have been taught that ‘the pain is just purely physical’ might become more open to the possibility of healing some of our emotional wounds in the hope that it helps reduce our pain. It is worth noting that this is a conversation about the most stubborn forms of headache, neck pain, shoulder pain, back pain, sciatic pain, knee pain, hip pain, ankle pain, foot pain which are distinct from life‘s fresh injuries. It is of course the case that fresh injuries can hurt and probably should hurt without any help from emotional stress. But chronic pain is far far more complex of a topic than a fresh injury topic, and requires a broader set of considerations.
So the single most aggravating event in the life of a pain sufferer is one that causes a combination of physical and mental stress. The reason that this is such an excellent teacher or teachable moment is that it reflects exactly what we know about almost every case of stubborn pain. The majority of stubborn pains are known to be a combination of physical, mental and emotional factors all combined.
The two common misconceptions that people have about pain are that it is either totally physical or totally mental. At one end of the spectrum we say something like ‘it’s just a pulled muscle’, at the other end of the spectrum we say ‘it’s all just in my head’. Meanwhile, the reality is that life is more complex. Very few chronic pains are either totally physical or totally mental. And the ‘moving house trigger’ is an excellent demonstration of this, that anyone who has pain can observe and learn from.
An interesting example of this understanding of chronic pain comes from some high level research carried out by the aeronautics manufacturer Boeing. Boeing lose so much of their annual profit and revenue due to workers who miss large amounts of work due to back pain each year that they spent millions of dollars on one of the most in depth studies that have ever been done into occupational back pain. In the hope that they might understand how to prevent so many of their people missing so much work. When all was said and done Boeings research revealed that it wasn’t heavy lifting that was the most predictive factor in generating chronic back pain in their workers. The research showed that the most accurately predicting factor for chronic back pain in workers was feeling severely under appreciated by their superiors. Research like this challenges our understanding of pain in a very important and useful way
So the single most aggravating event in the life of a pain sufferer is one that causes a combination of physical and mental stress. The reason that this is such an excellent teacher or teachable moment is that it reflects exactly what we know about almost every case of stubborn pain. The majority of stubborn pains are known to be a combination of physical, mental and emotional factors all combined.
The two common misconceptions that people have about pain are that it is either totally physical or totally mental. At one end of the spectrum we say something like ‘it’s just a pulled muscle’, at the other end of the spectrum we say ‘it’s all just in my head’. Meanwhile, the reality is that life is more complex. Very few chronic pains are either totally physical or totally mental. And the ‘moving house trigger’ is an excellent demonstration of this, that anyone who has pain can observe and learn from.
An interesting example of this understanding of chronic pain comes from some high level research carried out by the aeronautics manufacturer Boeing. Boeing lose so much of their annual profit and revenue due to workers who miss large amounts of work due to back pain each year that they spent millions of dollars on one of the most in depth studies that have ever been done into occupational back pain. In the hope that they might understand how to prevent so many of their people missing so much work. When all was said and done Boeings research revealed that it wasn’t heavy lifting that was the most predictive factor in generating chronic back pain in their workers. The research showed that the most accurately predicting factor for chronic back pain in workers was feeling severely under appreciated by their superiors. Research like this challenges our understanding of pain in a very important and useful way.
From our perspective as pain clinicians it is frustrating but also fascinating to see so often people who are quite advanced in their recovery (and who might not have had pain for months) still find that their pain relapses when they move house. And yet does not seem to relapse at any other time. The important thing about all this is simply that it may point more clearly to the best path towards better management of our pain. As a society we struggle with chronic pain every bit as much as we struggle with mental health. We just aren’t good at treating it. So opportunities to learn about the real nature of our pain are important.
If we take the lessons from this it might help us to take a broader and more integrated approach to our pain management. Those of us who have been taught to believe that the pain could be ‘all in our head’ might be more open to physical solutions that heal and strengthen the body. Those of us who have been taught that ‘the pain is just purely physical’ might become more open to the possibility of healing some of our emotional wounds in the hope that it helps reduce our pain. It is worth noting that this is a conversation about the most stubborn forms of headache, neck pain, shoulder pain, back pain, sciatic pain, knee pain, hip pain, ankle pain, foot pain which are distinct from life‘s fresh injuries. It is of course the case that fresh injuries can hurt and probably should hurt without any help from emotional stress. But chronic pain is far far more complex of a topic than a fresh injury topic, and requires a broader set of considerations.
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