Caring, Secular, Scientifically-Informed.

Somewhere between 20-25% of Americans (1 in 4) experience some form of chronic pain. About 8.5% of Americans (almost 1 in 10) have high-impact chronic pain, meaning it significantly limits daily life and work. Of those who experience chronic pain, new research suggests that as many as 50% may be suffering from pain that is neuroplastic, in other words, they experience chronic pain for which there is no underlying structural cause that isn't also present in people who live without pain. 

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Perhaps you have been made to feel that your pain, fatigue or other symptoms are "all in your head." That's dismissive and inaccurate. It suggests your symptoms aren't real, when your pain is very real. Your pain isn't all in your head, but it is all in your brain! That's because all pain, no matter the source, is created by your brain.

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Pain is a danger signal. When you place your hand on a hot stove, your brain interprets the nerve signals from your hand and creates pain so that you will take your hand away. If you injure your ankle, your brain creates pain to remind you not to walk on it and to rest it until it heals. Likewise, when your brain detects that you may have a virus, it creates fatigue to remind you to rest. 

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In many cases, however, pain can become a learned response long after the injury that caused the initial pain has healed (even when there was no initial injury). Because we have come to think of ourselves as a person with an injury or illness, the background processes in our brain can become hypervigilant for signs that we may be in danger of aggravating that injury, and will then interpret ordinary sensations, such as fatigue or muscle tightness, as dangerous, thus creating pain. Similarly, we can also "Pavlov ourselves" into associating certain cues - such as sitting, standing, walking, or bending - with pain so that we experience pain by conditioned response. This learned-response pain is called nociplastic or neuroplastic pain.

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Some forms of pain that may be neuroplastic can include:

• Chronic back and neck pain

• Headaches and migraines

• Temporomandibular Disorder (TMD, sometimes also called TMJ or TMS)

• Irritable Bowel Syndrome and other chronic gastrointestinal problems (especially common with chronic stress and trauma)

• Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

• Other joint pains that seem to migrate, move, or change with weather, mood, or emotions 

The good news is that psycho-behavioral treatments such as Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT) can not only reduce chronic pain symptoms, in many cases they can cure your chronic pain for good! 

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Note: It is important to treat these conditions in consultation with a physician to rule-in or rule-out possible neuroplastic pain. 

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At Waypoint Psychotherapy, we offer Pain Reprocessing Therapy in-person at our offices in Kennesaw, Georgia. 

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