Chronic Pain Awareness Month: Understanding Pain Beyond the Body

By AntiFragile Physical Therapy (Asheville, NC)

September is Chronic Pain Awareness Month, making it a good time to talk about something that affects so many people but is still often misunderstood: chronic pain.

Pain is something most of us experience at some point. You roll an ankle, tweak your back, or overdo it at the gym, and your body lets you know something isn't quite right. Usually, as the injury heals, the pain starts to fade.

Chronic pain can be different.

For some people, pain sticks around long after an injury should have healed. For others, it may come from an ongoing condition or develop without one clear cause. And when pain becomes a regular part of your life, it can start to affect much more than just your body.

What Does Chronic Pain Look Like?

There isn't one specific type of person or diagnosis associated with chronic pain.

At AntiFragile, we see people dealing with chronic pain for many different reasons, including:

• Arthritis and joint pain

• Ehlers-Danlos syndromes (EDS) and hypermobility

• Endometriosis and pelvic pain

• Chronic low back pain

• Persistent pain after an injury or surgery

• Recurring muscle and soft tissue pain

• Headaches and other chronic pain conditions

  
  

Sometimes the pain is always there. Sometimes it comes and goes. It might be worse after a long day, a poor night's sleep, a stressful week, or an activity that your body isn't used to.

That unpredictability can be frustrating, especially when you're trying to figure out what your body needs.

Chronic pain can also change the way you live your life. Maybe you've stopped running because you're worried about making your pain worse. Maybe you have trouble sleeping, sitting through a workday, playing with your kids, or doing the activities you used to enjoy.

Chronic pain isn't just about how much something hurts. It's about what that pain keeps you from doing.

Pain Isn't Always About Tissue Damage

One of the biggest misconceptions about chronic pain is that the amount of pain you feel must directly correspond to the amount of damage in your body.

But pain is much more complicated than that.

Your nervous system is constantly taking in information from your body and your surroundings and deciding how much of a threat something might be. That means things like previous injuries, stress, sleep, emotions, expectations, and your overall environment can all influence how you experience pain.

This is part of what is called the biopsychosocial approach to pain.

In simple terms, your pain experience can have biological, psychological, and social components. It's not just about the muscle, joint, or body part that hurts.

And importantly, this does not mean your pain isn't real or that it's "all in your head."

Your pain is real. Understanding that the nervous system plays a role in pain simply gives us more information about how we can work with it.

When Pain and Stress Feed Each Other

This is something we see often in both physical therapy and massage therapy.

When you're stressed, your body responds. You may hold more tension in your muscles, sleep less, move differently, or have less energy to take care of yourself. And when you're already dealing with chronic pain, that stress can make everything feel harder.

Pain can make stress more stressful, and stress can make pain more painful.

It's not that stress is necessarily causing your pain. Instead, stress is one of many factors that can influence how your nervous system processes and responds to pain.

This is one reason why chronic pain management isn't always about finding one thing to "fix." Sometimes it means looking at the bigger picture and figuring out which pieces of that picture you can change.

How Physical Therapy Can Help With Chronic Pain

Physical therapy for chronic pain isn't necessarily about getting you to a point where you never feel pain again.

Instead, we often focus on helping you understand your body, improve your movement, build strength and confidence, and get back to the things you want to do.

That might look different for everyone.

For one person, it might mean gradually returning to running. For someone else, it could mean being able to work without constantly thinking about their back. It could mean building enough strength and confidence to move without fear or learning how to modify an activity when your body needs something different.

At AntiFragile, we want to understand what your pain is keeping you from doing and build a plan around that.

Where Massage Therapy Comes In

Massage can be another useful piece of the chronic pain puzzle.

Living with pain can be exhausting. Add work, family, training, and everyday stress on top of that, and it can feel like your body never gets a chance to slow down. Massage therapy can help with relaxation, muscle tension, and feeling more comfortable in your body. And that matters.

Massage isn't a cure for every type of chronic pain, and it doesn't have to be. It can be one part of a larger approach that helps you manage your symptoms, reduce tension, and give your body (and your nervous system) a chance to relax.

Sometimes taking care of pain means strengthening and moving. Sometimes it means slowing down. Often, it's a little bit of both.

Chronic Pain Deserves to Be Heard

One of the most important parts of Chronic Pain Awareness Month is simply creating more understanding. People living with chronic pain don't always "look" like they're in pain. They may be able to go to work, exercise, socialize, and carry on with everyday life while still dealing with symptoms that other people can't see.

Just because someone looks fine doesn't mean they feel fine. And just because an MRI, X-ray, or other test doesn't show a clear explanation for someone's pain doesn't mean that pain isn't real.

Instead of only asking, "What's wrong with this body part?", it can be helpful to ask:

"What is this pain keeping you from doing?"

Because that's often where treatment really starts.

Moving Forward With Chronic Pain

There isn't one perfect solution for chronic pain, and what works for one person may not work for another. But you don't have to navigate it alone. Physical therapy, massage therapy, movement, strength training, stress management, sleep, and other forms of support can all be part of a personalized approach to chronic pain management.

At AntiFragile, our goal isn't simply to tell you to "push through" your pain or avoid everything that hurts. We want to help you better understand what's going on, find ways to move with more confidence, and work toward the activities and life you want.

If chronic pain has been keeping you from doing the things you love, our physical therapists and massage therapists are here to help.

You don't have to wait until your pain is gone to start moving forward.

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