Is Your Chronic Pain Neuroplastic? Indicators and Treatment

As a professional therapist, I am very aware of the widespread problem of chronic pain. In fact, according to the CDC, it is estimated that 20.4% of the U.S. adult population (50.0 million people) experience chronic pain, leading to daily dysfunction.

However, many chronic pain cases lack a physical cause, leading to frustrated searches for answers and ineffective treatments.

Many people with chronic pain invest a significant amount of time and energy consulting numerous medical professionals and specialists in search of a remedy for their pain. Despite exploring a wide range of treatment options, including prescription painkillers and various therapies, many have yet to discover an effective solution to alleviate their discomfort.

This frantic search for answers can be incredibly frustrating, isolating, anxiety-inducing and often leads to more pressure to find answers or ways to get rid of the pain.

If you're reading this, you may have experienced this firsthand. There is a good chance that you are a victim of inexplicable chronic pain and have been told that it's all in your head. So, is it?

Is Chronic Pain All In Your Head?

Yes and no. Most chronic pain is neuroplastic.

Neuroplastic pain is a type of chronic pain that occurs when the nervous system undergoes changes in response to ongoing pain signals. These changes, known as neuroplasticity, can result in the brain and nervous system becoming more sensitive to pain over time, leading to an ongoing cycle of pain and heightened sensitivity.

How can experts confidently determine that a patient’s pain is neuroplastic vs structural? There are several key indicators to examine.

Determining If You Have Neuroplastic Pain

The following are positive indicators of neuroplastic pain. The more indicators that are present, the more likely that the symptoms are neuroplastic.

1) Symptoms Originate Without Injury:

The pain first came on without any preceding injury or started several days after a possible injury. Even if pain begins with an injury, if it persists after the injury has healed, it’s likely neuroplastic.

2) Symptoms Begin During Time of Stress:

Stress puts the brain on high alert and can trigger pain.

3) Symptoms Are Inconsistent/Vary:

When there is variation in symptom location and/or intensity, it is more likely to be neuroplastic.

4) Symptoms are Unexplainable by Known Structural Conditions:

If doctors are unable to find any clear cause for the pain, that’s a pretty solid indicator that it’s neuroplastic. Even if the patient has a diagnosis, it is possible that it’s neuroplastic.

Sometimes doctors do give a diagnosis because they are trained to look for a structural cause and provide a solution - but this does not encompass the whole problem and a client's pain doesn't necessarily go away.

5) Symptoms Triggered by Factors that Have Nothing to Do with the Body:

For instance, pain is triggered during times of stress. Conversely, the pain goes away/decreases when you’re authentically engaged in something enjoyable.

Another factor is when the pain becomes linked with a neutral stimulus like activities, smells, sounds, light, the time of day, the weather, physical positions, etc., it is likely that the pain is neuroplastic.

6) History of Childhood Adversity:

People who have experienced trauma in their childhood, such as abuse and neglect, are more likely to develop chronic pain as adults. But it isn’t just major trauma that can lead to neuroplastic pain. Anything that made you feel unsafe growing up can predispose you to chronic pain.

7) Presence of Common Personality Traits:

There are certain personality traits that are common in people with neuroplastic pain. These traits all put the brain on high alert and often lead us to live a life with an unhelpful amount of intensity.

• Perfectionism

• Conscientiousness

• People Pleasing

• Anxiousness

8) Family History of Chronic Pain

Growing up with family members with a history of seemingly unrelated pain conditions often leads to modeling these behaviors as we grow up and is an indicator of neuroplastic pain, due to shared psychological/neurobiological vulnerabilities.

For example, a history of maternal headaches, an aunt with stomach pains, etc.

Let’s say you identified with some of these indicators of neuroplastic pain, as many of us will.

The next concern that comes to the mind of patients is, “But how? The pain is real!” Of course it is!

What is happening in the mind of a neuroplastic pain patient?

Pain is a danger signal. Normally when we injure ourselves, the body sends signals to the brain informing us of tissue damage, and we feel pain. But sometimes the brain can make a mistake.

Neuroplastic pain results from the brain misinterpreting safe messages from the body as if they were dangerous. In other words, neuroplastic pain is a false alarm.

Let's say you put your hand on a hot stove. The pain lets you know to move your hand so that you don’t injure yourself further. But sometimes, these danger signals can get activated even in the absence of structural damage. And when you actually think you have structural damage, then the sensations get amplified and you experience more pain.

All chronic pain patients have the same fear: “There has to be something going on in my body that’s causing this.” And when the brain believes that the body is damaged, it responds with pain.

Addressing Neuroplastic Pain

Even though chronic pain is not imaginary, it can be addressed through psychological interventions.

Brain imaging studies have shown that pain is quite real, and recent research has shown that pain is often the result of learned neural pathways in the brain. And thankfully, pain can also be unlearned.

Pain Reprocessing Therapy is one approach that can be effective for treating neuroplastic pain.

A therapist that is specially trained in Pain Reprocessing Therapy uses various psychological techniques that retrain the brain to respond to signals from the body properly, through a lens of safety, and subsequently, to break the cycle of chronic pain. Essentially, this type of therapy helps people reprocess the brain's pain signals so that they are no longer misinterpreting safe signals as dangerous.

Learn more about cognitive behavioral therapy for chronic pain or connect with one of our certified pain reprocessing therapists. Request a free 15-minute consultation.