Change the Brain; Relieve the Pain; Transform the Person
Section 2: Touch
Wiring New Connections
Tissue Maintenance and Repair
Fibroblasts are the most common cells in the body. Their main function is to repair and maintain the connective tissue.
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Most of the body’s energy is used to perform this activity. Fibroblasts make collagen, contributing it to the extracellular matrix. Thus we are constantly building and rebuilding the tissue that provides structure, connectivity, protection and function to our entire body. When an injury or infection occurs fibroblasts stop making collagen, change shape and travel to the area of injury. Once there they release inflammatory products, destroying damaged tissue so that it can be picked up by other cells and removed from the area. When this is accomplished they switch back to making collagen and repair the area of damage. When this task is finished fibroblasts migrate back to where they came from and return to their normal shape and function.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
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Inflammation Anti-inflammation
The inflammatory reaction to injury is complex, involving a massive response from the immune cells that guard and protect the body. These include fibroblasts in the local tissue, lymphocytes in lymph nodes and several other cells circulating in blood vessels. With injury to local tissue the smallest blood vessels in the area, capillaries, move cells into the tissue. These cells release inflammatory chemicals that attack damaged tissue and attract more cells from the capillaries. Fibroblasts are called into action and contribute to this inflammatory sequence that methodically destroys and devours damaged tissue. This battle that is mounted in our connective tissue system sends pain signals to the brain, where pain is perceived. That pain causes us to stop using that part of the body to allow it to finish the inflammatory activity.
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Skin
We can determine the various and magnificent properties of our skin and describe just how powerful it is as our largest sensory organ when we find ourselves using expressions like, ‘That makes my skin crawl’, ‘I’ve got you under my skin’ or ‘he has a thick skin’. Our skin is not only a sensory organ, it is the largest organ of our body. It is easy to understand why touch has been called the most important of the senses when we think of the magnitude of the skin. In addition to allowing us to sense touch, the skin protects us from external forces, and acts as an interface between our outside world and the layers of connective tissue that lie beneath it. It regulates our temperature via heat exchange and perspiration, controls fluid and hydration status, keeps out infection and mounts inflammatory and healing responses. Read the text beneath the graphic on page 20 of the Neuroplastic Transformation workbook to understand in greater detail the richness and complexity of the skin, how it becomes involved in persistent pain and strategies for resolving that pain.​
Peripheral Pain Reaction
Refer to page 20 of the Neuroplastic Transformation workbook. Read the text beneath the graphic for an explanation of the peripheral reaction that occurs when skin sends pain rather than touch signals to the brain.
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There are a multitude of receptor types in the skin to process things such as touch, temperature, pressure, movement and pain. With ongoing pain, these receptors are recruited to be pain receptors, sending pain signals to the brain instead of their usual messages. The brain then reacts by making everything worse.
Skin is easily accessible. People can come up with multiple self-directed strategies for restoring normal sensations. Paying attention to the pain and identifying pain sensations versus other sensations can be extremely helpful. This allows the brain to use memory to reconnect to the variety of sensations, rather than interpreting everything as pain.
Manual Therapy
Incorporating touch into pain care is a critical aspect of changing persistent pain and restoring the person. Treatment utilizing touch comes in countless forms. It runs the gamut from working just off the body to deep fascial manipulation to high-velocity techniques to realign the skeleton. Whatever the technique, creating change in the skin and subcutaneous tissues creates change in the spinal cord and brain.
Touch is used clinically in many ways to interact with patients. People are touched when practitioners establish connections initially with simple eye contact, a smile, a greeting or a handshake. Physical examination requires palpation to evaluate structures and identify areas of dysfunction. The practitioner senses the quality of the tissue beneath their hands and begins to see with their hands. The skin can be warm or cold, moist or dry. It can be tense with edema or loose and without tone. The patient senses the quality and depth of the practitioners hand. They become aware of their own bodies. They discern the sensation as either painful or non-painful.
Traumatic Memory
Traumatic memory is an integral component of persistent pain experience. Physical and emotional traumatic events are both experienced and stored in the body and the brain. All of the physical and emotional experience causing and surrounding persistent pain creates traumatic memory. The value assigned to the pain is greater if the traumatic memory accompanying the pain is ignored.
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Physical and emotional traumatic memories overwhelm the ability to problem solve and plan, cause a chronic state of flight and flight, encourage passivity, diminish self-soothing, defeat self care and discourage recovery. There is a point in time that the traumatic memory establishes the suffering of persistent pain. Identify the emotions associated with the pain, such as fear, anger, anxiety, grief, sadness, terror and despair. Ask yourself the question, “Has your pain become the defining factor in your life?”
Pain the Spark of Life
Painful experiences are often part of life and death situations. Pain will always be assigned the highest value in the brain because it threatens survival of the organism. The brain will continue to process the pain as long as it is present. The problem with this is that it robs our bodies of critical energy needed to sustain and live a full life. Rather than suppress the pain, the person has to learn to reject it as an option and to expect the brain to make adjustments to itself to restore comfort, well-being and pleasure.
The pain is meant to get our attention. It shouts at us and says, ‘Do something about this now! Oppose this and reject this at every turn or it will rob you of your life energy!’ Say no with every fiber of your being. Seek and find ways to stop it, to soothe it, to force it out of your body, your brain, your life. It is that critical. It is when we succumb to the damning thoughts that it is inevitable, that it is something we will just have to live with, something that wins out over us and our will, that we eventually die with it little by little.
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