Dr. Slava Shut

The human brain is a magnificent organic structure. It not only allows us to understand ourselves and our environments, but it also governs all of the complex functions of our bodies. Involuntary actions, like our heart and digestive function, all take place without us even having to consciously control anything. Even our breathing, though partially voluntary, still happens when we’re not even paying attention to it.

Welcome to Topic Thursday where we dive into something specifically related to fitness, business, or life in general. Today, we’re going to talk about how the brain plays a part in how you solve your problems and reach your goals. 

Learning To Manage Your Pain

The brain’s complex functions allow us to retain information and recognize patterns, whether they’re dangerous or helpful patterns. With all our current technologies, we understand more about the brain today than ever before. Since a lot of this science is relatively new, there’s a good chance your brain is capable of things you didn’t think were possible.

From a physical therapist’s perspective, I’ve helped countless people along their journeys to success. Aside from my years of training, I’ve also had decades of experience. Up to this point, I’ve been lucky enough to have seen some of the patterns in my patients result in great recoveries.

But there are also some things I’ve seen that could be problematic for some of them long term.

When you’re dealing with pain in your body, it’s important to have a plan to deal with it. Physical therapy is a great pain management tool. It’s non-invasive, non-surgical, and there’s no healing/recovery period, as opposed to surgery. 

Don’t get me wrong; It’s ok to use pain medications when they’re necessary. But in all my experience I rarely see cases where that’s the only option. Most of the time, it probably shouldn’t even be the first option. When we’re conditioned to deal with pain as the norm, this mindset can have negative consequences in many aspects of your life.

If you’re experiencing chronic pain, you should really do something about it. But with so many treatments  available, it’s a good idea to weigh your options.

Pain Medication For Pain Management

Once you get used to managing your pain using medicines first, it’s hard to unlearn. It can be simple and convenient to just take a pill when you’re uncomfortable. Over time, whether or not there’s a chemical dependency, this can form a habit. That’s partially because of the nature of pain medications and how they work. 

But it also has a lot to do with how your brain works.

When you learn something, the brain actually changes. Your experiences start from the outside world. Some of them you ignore, others you notice. Some you pay attention to. Of those, you might learn a thing or two. When you recognize a useful pattern, you can take advantage of this when you see an opportunity to do it again.

If you learn that all pain can be easily resolved by medications, you might be rewarding yourself for taking a shortcut. Rewards are crucial for forming habits. You can trick yourself into tolerating discomfort using habitual incentives. But it doesn’t only work to your benefit. Some of the rewards you give yourself could be associated with something harmful. Reward yourself in the wrong ways and you could be actually teaching yourself to respond inappropriately to harmful things.

Like shortcuts.

A shortcut can certainly be a good thing when it’s used to cut out useless hassle. But when it comes to pain management, I haven’t seen many cases where a shortcut is the right path to recovery. 

A quick, convenient solution in the moment might come with side effects, or long term consequences. Given the option to either heal your body completely with a little discomfort at first, or to just rely solely on pain medication, many might not see much of a difference in outcome. After treatments, they feel better.

But one is less risky, less invasive, and non-habit forming. Physical therapy doesn’t have side effects, like medications can.  By the time you’re experiencing something unpleasant from a medication, it’s too late to “un-take” it. You just have to ride it out. If things get bad enough, you should definitely seek help.

With physical therapy for pain management, you never have to worry about anything like that. 

Pain medications might work for a while, but eventually they can become less effective. If you’ve reinforced that habit of using pain medication to avoid your discomfort, there’s a strong possibility you’ll develop a certain level of tolerance to your medication. 

That could mean that although you take the same medications over time, their effectiveness starts to taper off. They might not even work for you at all anymore, eventually. But the problem is: you could still be experiencing pain. Drug tolerance can be a nightmare for some of my patients that started their recovery journey by relying too heavily on pain medication.

But all is never lost. Even those who are dealing with long term chronic pain can seek relief in physical therapy. Are you suffering from chronic pain? Contact my team today to set up a 1-on-1 with me. Don’t deal with that any longer than you have to. The time is now!