I cannot begin to explain what absolute BS this theory is. It is pseudoscientific clap-trap. A new way of spinning the idea of your pain being generated by your mind - but with suitable neurobabble to make it sound less psychological! The evidence its based on is very scant too. Studies that show very, small, short-lived CNS mediated pain amplification effects following the experience of acute pain. Vague studies showing reduced or increased resting state activation or activation following pain stimulation in various brain areas that might have something to do with pain (but in reality, probably do many other things we don't yet understand). Nothing that has the power to explain chronic pain, especially not of a relapsing-remitting nature.
The rest of the theory is just the usual somatisation/ pain catastrophisation stuff rebranded in neural terms.
How is it that our experience of pain/malaise varies so substantially with activity, etc? If its truly central, and we have pain receptors/ pain processing regions constantly "switched on" or set to a low threshold, then the pain should be constant. Here is where the central sensitisation theorists just wave their hands and say "the brain is complicated". To me, all those various features point to a more peripheral culprit. One that varies in intensity over time, probably inflammatory in nature.
If there is such a thing as central sensitisation syndrome, you would probably need significant and very selective damage to the brain to get it. Or maybe really severe psychosis, enough to lead to major, enduring distortions in the way you process bodily sensations. Or perhaps amputation (but then it wouldn't feel anything like FM or CFS, it would be much more localised).
@Woolie
I couldn't agree more!
All this "it's *just* your brain misinterpreting pain signals" sounds to me like yet another way of blaming the patient (e.g. GET, CBT etc).
It's by far the easiest thing for doctors to do if they don't know what's going on or how to treat it successfully.
Every time I've heard this statement, and other equally condescending variations of it, I have had to restrain myself from slapping the smug face in front of me and saying, "Hey, don't worry! It doesn't really hurt - it's just your brain misinterpreting pain signals!"
(emphasis mine)How is it that our experience of pain/malaise varies so substantially with activity, etc? If its truly central, and we have pain receptors/ pain processing regions constantly "switched on" or set to a low threshold, then the pain should be constant. Here is where the central sensitisation theorists just wave their hands and say "the brain is complicated". To me, all those various features point to a more peripheral culprit. One that varies in intensity over time, probably inflammatory in nature.
I've been convinced for probably c.20 years that not only my chronic pain is the result of systemic inflammation, but also my acute pain like migraine, sinusitis, impinged nerves, etc, which respond positively to the application of ice-packs (Theraflex are good).
This is supported systemically when I see my CRP and ESR lowering in correlation with increases in my steroid dose.
Yes, of course the brain is complicated, but I think you're right, if pain processing was constantly amplified, pain would be constant as well. I think I see some similarities between PTSD and ME/CFS/FMS, with the brain seemingly on red alert / in a state of hypervigilance the whole time, but the point about that is that it's the brain's way of trying to protect the body it lives in from further physical trauma.
I was told by a physio a few years back that when an area of ourselves suffers a physical trauma/injury that damages sensory/pain nerves, the brain assesses that the body wasn't given enough of a warning (via sensory nerves) to keep it away from the cause of that injury, and so it repopulates the area concerned with many more sensory nerves than it had there previously, in an effort to stop it from happening again.
More sensory/pain nerves = more sensory/pain receptors in the brain. So far from it being a case of our brains "misinterpreting pain signals," the physical reality, according to this theory, is that we have more pain sensors and receptors.
If that's true, then of course we're going to feel more pain than bodies with fewer pain sensors and recptors do.
Misinterpretation my arse. Our brains are interpreting things perfectly, as far as I can see. It's the "experts" brains that seem to be misinterpreting information!
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