Pain Relief The Natural Way

Who Needs Pain Relief?

Working all my life helping to treat pain and injury I very early on became interested in pain and what causes it. I was fascinated by the different levels of pain experienced by different people. Funnily enough it always tended to be the ones who began the consultation by saying how high their personal pain tolerance threshold was who were inevitably the ones who complained the most! Funny that.

Understanding Pain

It was a couple of eminent fellows in the middle of the last century who were responsible for THE PAIN GATE THEORY. This had a revolutionary affect really as it helped medics understand how people actually perceived pain. The theory is not that complicated and when understood it seems to fit perfectly with how we all react naturally when in pain anyway.

The theory states that the brain only has the capacity to take in or compute so much sensory information at one time. It also said that there is a 'preference' system for the computation of information coming into the brain via sensory nerves carrying messages from the body.

Melzack and Wall hypothesised that the brain would accept or allow in information via larger diameter nerve endings in preference to information coming in via smaller nerves. It turns out that most pain messages are transmitted to the brain via small diameter nerves whereas information relating to movement and touch is transmitted via the larger type of nerve.

Using The Pain Gate Theory Naturally

So in order to use this principle (The Pain Gate Theory) if you move around, exercise or rub the offending, painful body part it tends to lessen your perception of the pain. Strange but true.

Think about how naturally you rub yourself or the grazed knee of a child without thinking, in order to get pain relief. This theory also explains why pain very often seems to be worse at night time compared to during the day. It is due to the reduced amount of sensory input your brain is receiving at night when you tend to be still and there are minimal visual or auditory cues. Hence all your brain has entering it are the pain messages unhindered by anything else.

So there we go. A quick insight into pain. Keep on moving and rubbing guys!

It is important to understand pain. Pain relief is only one aspect. Find out about good pain.