At its most basic level, pain can be described as an unpleasant sensory experience resulting from rapid-fire messages being sent to the brain, through networks of nerves, from the site of an injury. Assisted by complex chemical reactions, these messages must first pass into larger nerve “tracts” in the spine before being transmitted to the brain.
Acute Pain is the loud, “yelping alarm” sent out to let us know that a particular part of our body needs immediate attention (and added protection) to prevent further injury. Those impulses shooting through neural pathways create new connections along the way that shout, “PAIN!” to the brain. Like when you touch a hot stove, the nerves say, “Ouch! Pull your hand away, NOW!” They then alert other cells within our nervous, immune, and vascular systems to jump into action. All this activity, designed to promote healing, actually causes the inflammation around even the smallest injury.
Sensing the body’s distress, some very energetic nerve cells ignite to assist the newly formed pain-connections with carrying their message to the brain. Imagine bionic mail carriers running between the spine and brain carrying an unending stream of “pain-message packages.” Once the injury is healed, acute pain normally disappears, and all the related cells that were rallied to assist the process, usually return to their stations to await the next alarm.
Chronic pain, however, occurs when the neural cells, initially enlisted to ensure the flow of pain messages to the brain (those excited mail carriers), are incapable of giving up their mission. Because such pain is caused by unruly nerves themselves, it’s called “neuropathic pain,” a term you’ll see often on our MediCalmTM site.
Understanding neuropathic pain is the subject of many scientific studies that have, up to now, yielded only chemically based solutions; narcotics and neuroleptic drugs that temporarily reduce or block chronic pain. Unfortunately, these also dull normal nervous system activities, leaving one’s whole being feeling “dulled-down,” and among other side effects, can eventually lead to addiction.
MediCalmTM Pain Relief Therapyis revolutionary and exciting because it takes a completely different approach towards solving the issue of chronic and neuropathic pain. Rather than relying upon chemicals to blunt the effects of overly enthusiastic pain neurons, it actually sends overriding “no-pain” messages through the same neural pathways, allowing the brain to quiet the ingrained cry of the pain neurons. Repeated MediCalm treatments have a cumulative effect, actually retraining one’s nervous system, creating prolonged pain free periods or solving the neuropathic pain problem all together.
What's your "pain story"? Share your experience of chronic pain by clicking the "comments" button below. We'd love to hear from you.
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