How Old Injuries Create New Pain

When clients see us for the first time they’re often surprised by how thoroughly we want to go through their previous medical history. As we peel back the layers of previous traumas, accidents, emotional stressors or otherwise; we start to find patterns in the body in the way that it moves and behaves with respect to new stressors applied.

As a society our belief is that once the initial damage from a previous injury is done and the tissue is healed, regardless of whether that pain or disfunction has actually fully gone away, it’s over with. This is one of the first things that we help patients to identify as being untrue; a belief system that needs to be unlearned. The truth is that the human experience is incredibly complex and there is no injury that occurs that doesn’t have some kind of emotional value to it whether it’s a fear of loss of mobility, or function to support yourself, your family, your friends, to meeting work obligations, or whatever it happens to be.

Our to-do lists often hinder our ability to slow down and process traumas.

We rely on our body to be able to move and do the things we demand of it, and any pain or disfunction challenges our ability to do that. What this creates is subconscious bracing patterns that allow us to adapt to the dysfunction in order to get what we need to get done and continue on with our lives.

Over time, we learn how to function in these altered maladaptive patterns and we may even potentially feel symptom-free for a time until a new injury occurs, or a new strain occurs, or perhaps a new exercise routine challenges our body in a way that it did not want to be challenged or didn’t have the resilience to be able to endure, and “suddenly” we develop symptoms. We then falsely attribute these symptoms to the exercise or the activity that we recently took up or the new routine as the cause of the strain without observing the patterns that came before it. John describes this in his Myofascial Release courses as being like splatter art. New patterns with new colours, new shapes, and new definition; layer upon layer over each other in a myriad of ways that for some might turn into headaches, for others might be hip or pelvic pain, and others as postural weakness or shoulder injury but all exhibiting the same pattern of an adaptation we developed long before this event and that is then challenged and begins to cause strain on the system.

New patterns of strain layered over old bracing patterns, as in “splatter art”.

To complicate things even further, physiologically when the body experiences pain sensation over a long period of time it can actually become sensitized to pain sensation coming from that area so any movement or mobility through that position in space; rather than perceiving the finer details of joint position and tensile exertion, the brain simply perceives ouch. This sensitization begins after only a few days of chronic discomfort and can worsen considerably over time especially if the effected area is of particular importance to the individual. For example a cut finger might mean nothing to the average person but to a concert violinist could be their entire career on the line.

So what is the answer?

How do we uncover the underlying imbalance and create a long lasting change in your symptoms that allows you to create a lifestyle greater than any symptoms you may have had in the past?

FASCIA.

Science’s best guess as to how consciousness actually behaves in human beings is through light energy vibration and sound being transferred through the microtubules of the Fascia, which is believed to be hollow filaments almost like fibre optic cables. This happens because the fluid in our body behaves as a structured form of water (H3O2) which carries an electric charge. This allows information to be transmitted through the entire organism almost simultaneously.

It is hypothesized that the fascial network behaves like fibre optic cables.

This is how your body can have a very specific state dependent muscle memory for your pain. The same way someone who’s been in a motor vehicle accident during a rainstorm gets anxious when it’s raining outside or when you’re in that position that you know you injured your knee in, it feels just an extra bit unstable even if the muscles are strong independently with other exercises.

When we experience injury, at the moment of impact: the position in space, the tension in the system, the angles and the forces being exerted on our body are all remembered on an energetic and physical level.

Memory of the moment of impact is believed to be stored subconsciously in the fascia.

So the solution then is; in a safe and controlled environment, bring the body to the barrier of tension physically and energetically and wait at that barrier for the body to soften. This may show up in the form of heat, vibration, or redness in the skin and in some of our clients a self corrective movement that we call and unwinding where the body may even assume similar positions to the original trauma in order to process it in a more beneficial way.

Ultimately, holding tension in the fascial system at the barrier waiting for the ground substance to become less viscous (sticky) and rehydrate, brings our awareness back into the body in areas that have been neglected because of pain. But that awareness is associated with the ability to actually heal what may have been neglected initially.

If you want to get the most out of your therapy and feel more in control of your recovery, the best thing you can do is reconcile the injuries of the past while rebuilding mobility, stability, and strength in the present, so you know you can rely on your body in the future.

We can help; call or book online to see if Myofascial Release is the missing piece for your recurring pain.