Pain does not equal damage
This is a phrase you may have heard but what does it mean??
We all know that if you hurt yourself it causes pain. However, if you think of a paper cut – you can have a lot of pain from a relatively minor injury. How often do you see a big bruise on your legs and you can’t remember doing anything to cause it? The level of pain you experience is not necessarily a representation of the amount of injury you have. A small injury can cause a lot of pain.
There are surprising stories of terrible injuries such as soldiers who have lost a limb and yet they can do remarkable feats such as travelling a long way to safety. The pain doesn’t kick in until long after the injury when the soldier is out of imminent danger. You can have a severe injury and no pain.
The key message is – the more pain you have doesn’t mean the worse the injury. You can have a lot of pain without any physical injury. Persistent pain continues well beyond the time an injury will have healed. There can be a lot of pain but no physical damage. This pain is still a very real, physical experience.
There are lots of other factors that will influence how much pain you feel such as how tired you are, your mood, and your circumstances. Pain’s purpose is to keep you from harm. Sometimes once activated the pain system seems to get stuck on, and pain is ongoing as the system becomes very sensitive to any stimulation such as touch or movement.