Understanding and Managing Your Pain with the Help of Kinesiologists

We can all agree that pain is a universal human experience. As health professionals we now understand that a significant portion of pain is produced by the brain. You might have experienced pain for a few weeks or months – this is called “acute pain” and is common with tissue damage, such as from a back injury or ankle sprain. With this type of pain, you may have seen a physician and were encouraged to stay active and gradually get back to your normal duties and activities of daily living.

Or you may have experienced your pain for longer than three months – this is called “persistent pain”, also commonly known as “chronic pain”. Ongoing pain produced by the brain is less about structural changes (e.g. tissue damage) in the body and more about the sensitivity of the nervous system; in other words it’s more complex. Having a brain that continues to produce pain, even after the body tissues are restored and out of danger can be difficult for one to navigate. Some people say that they still “feel like they must have something wrong.” To try and figure out what’s wrong, you need to begin by re-training the brain and the body’s movement.

Medication can help, but it’s limited. It is the more active approaches that are necessary to re-train the brain. Physical activity and function – from the brain’s perspective – and getting moving at comfortable levels without fear is optimal and will help to gradually restore your body’s movement. We need to re-train our brain and body with proper balance, mechanics and alignment to reverse the pain cycle. The best way to do this is to combine your traditional pain treatment with kinesiology-directed corrective exercises and movement education.

Kinesiologists are specifically trained in clinical corrective exercise as opposed to traditional personal training. Experts in body mechanics, these health professionals pursue a higher level of education and are committed to educating patients, while providing long-term tools so you are not dependent on ongoing treatment.

By providing clinical physical training, expertise and education, kinesiologists empower you to rehabilitate and maintain pain-free movement. Pain comes from the brain and it can be re-trained. When looked at it from a broad, whole-person perspective, it gives you a lot of opportunities to manage it effectively. Get a helping hand from a kinesiologist, set a goal and begin! If you are living with acute or chronic pain, visit www.painbc.ca or www.pipain.com to beg in the process of achieving the life you want to live.