The Pain Cycle
The Pain Cycle consists of four aspects: Injury, Pain, Body Compensation, and Unbalanced Motion.
The Pain Cycle typically begins when an injury occurs to the body, which results in the experience of pain. In an attempt to avoid, mitigate or eliminate this pain, the body compensates in its posture and movements. This, in turn, creates unbalanced motion adaptations, which then set the stage for further injury. And around and around this cycle we go, with ever widening and escalating effects.
If not resolved quickly, a person can become enmeshed in a seemingly endless litany of aches and pains in an ever changing and growing list. Sometimes the injury is not from a sudden and painful trauma (known as a macro-trauma). The injury that occurs may be a micro-trauma, which is an injury due to a cumulative trauma (one that is seemingly innocuous at the time but which results in injury as the cumulative effects of the motion or posture build up over time to precipitate the injury.)
This is the simplest form the pain cycle can take and is the easiest way to explain and present it. It must be understood, however, that this cycle often is a result of breakdowns in several aspects of the cycle simultaneously.
The pain cycle can be entered or instigated at any of the 4 aspects of the cycle, not just via injury. Body compensations are often occurring in many areas and not all of them are the result of an injury and a desire to avoid pain. Poor or weak posture habits (e.g. slouching and couch potato habits, standing with weight on one leg, forward head posture, to name just a few) are frequently a weak link in the overall good health of the body. This can result in adaptive body motions (as one would expect from the cycle enumerated above) but it can also result in pain. So, the Pain Cycle does not necessarily only move in one direction.
Pain alters posture, motion and breathing patterns. Changes in breathing patterns can cause postural changes such as: hypertonic scalenes, upper trapezius and levator scapular muscles resulting in fibrosis and trigger points in these muscles; decreased cervical and thoracic motion; costal cartilage sensitivity; and even weak abdominal muscles, tight erector spinae, pelvic floor weakness and visceral stasis, which may include urinary incontinence.
Dysfunction may become self-perpetuating. Pain may be due to disturbed function without any structural damage. Adaptation occurs over time as a result of how we deal with pain, and this, in turn, can affect posture and how we live our lives.
The 4th Posture Principle states: The body learns what you teach it-for better or for worse. The 5th Posture Principle states: Changes in posture and motion cause the body to change-for better or for worse. The Pain Cycle may result when we teach the body poor posture and unbalanced motion.
In order to break the Pain Cycle, one must intervene in the appropriate aspects of the pain cycle. Many times a program such as the StrongPosture® program can be a significant part of an appropriate intervention.
Dr. Susanna Wetsel, DC, CCN, DABCN
(References for this article, Stand Taller ~ Live Longer, 2008, S. Weiniger, and The Five Posture Principles, 2000, S. Weiniger)
