explain
pain
section
6
page
110
Introduction
Management essentials
There is no single solution for all pains. Pain, like
people, is always different. The pain experience, as
we have shown in “onions and orchestras” is an
experience which occurs as a result of themerging
of your body (including your brain of course),
your environment and your community.
Of themany non-drug-basedmanagement tools
that have been suggested formanaging pain, there
are three tools that have consistently been shown
to be helpful. They revolve around activity and
understanding and if necessary they can be
combinedwith appropriate short-term drug
therapy. But hang on – education and activity uses
themost powerful and personalised drug cabinet
on earth – the one in your brain, so it’s unfair to
say non-drug based!
Education, knowledge and the ability to act on that
knowledge provide the foundation for therapeutic
activity. Why perform painful activities or activities
whichmight be painful if you don’t understand the
hurt that they cause or could cause?Why do
something that hurts if you don’t understand the
difference between tissue damage and pain. That
would be daft and it would just further provoke
the protectivemechanisms. Education, knowledge
and understanding reduce the threat associated
with pain. Reduced threat has a positive effect on
all the input and response systems.
Movement not only increases the health of joints,
soft tissues, circulatory and respiratory systems, it
has another very important function. Educated
movement is brainnourishing, because it establishes
and re-establishes fine functional sensory andmotor
representations in the brain, using pathways laid
low by fear and ignorance. Our aim is to teach the
orchestra to play all the tunes again, to regain its
creativity, curiosity and resilience.
