Did you get back pain out of ‘nowhere’ which you’re now finding hard to resolve? Perhaps it started as you were engaged in a movement which used to be totally natural and harmless to you?
In this post, I’m going to be giving you one possible cause to consider for back pain and other muscular pains that started for seemingly no reason and that have persisted despite treatments like painkillers and manual manipulation.
What causes sudden muscle spasms and acute pain?
Sudden muscle pain, especially in the back and legs could be due to a number of reasons, including straining or exercising your body without adequate warmup and electrolyte imbalance. However, spasms are usually short-lived, and this acute type of pain should not persist beyond a few days unless a muscle or ligament tear is involved. In this case, pain could last several weeks until the injury is healed - but it should never persist beyond 3 months.
Unfortunately, many individuals today live with chronic pain that seems to have ‘started out of nowhere’. They either felt a very painful spasm during a particular activity, or they simply woke up with their muscles feeling sore, stiff and painful for no reason. It is this category of people that I am addressing in this post.
False ‘myths’ and incorrect diagnoses abound in relation to chronic back pain…
Sadly, thousands of individuals who seek treatment for unexplained pain that hasn’t resolved after a few months are given the wrong diagnosis, which is based on an assumption, rather than the truth. Their pain is commonly blamed on a pinched nerve, an old injury, bad posture, or on some abnormality in their back.
So did these people’s bodies suddenly ‘break’ or go out? Could an abnormality (such as a muscular imbalance or a disc herniation), suddenly cause such intense pain, even though it has probably been present long before the pain actually started? Could an injury last forever? (the answer is no, pain from an injury cannot last that long, because tissues heal, and even injuries that don’t heal perfectly and that leave ‘scars’ shouldn’t cause pain).
If you start to question things, then there’s a great chance that the diagnosis you’ve been given for your chronic pain will not make sense. According to the ex spine surgeon, David Hanscom, M.D:
“We generally don’t know where back pain comes from. And this is where spine surgery, probably 70% of it, should not be done. We do know very clearly that disc degeneration has nothing to do with back pain. So arthritis, bone spurs, bulging discs, herniated discs, ruptured discs […]disc degeneration has nothing to do with back pain. Yet we are doing probably 400-500 thousand [spinal] fusions this year for back pain - and that’s why our success rate is 20-25%.” (Curable Health).
Watch my video about the ‘Emotional Boiling’ pot to understand how chronic emotional tension and stress can lead to real, physical pain.
Chronic Stress and Anxiety could have more to do with chronic pain than you imagine!
Of course, given the way we’ve been brought up to think about our bodies - as mechanical structures that are separate to our minds - it's very natural to blame something we did the day before or in the moment when we get such strong symptoms emerge in this way.
However, if we really were to investigate the situation, most people would find out that they didn't even injure themselves when the symptoms first started.
There often isn't a real injury, like a tear or breakage, nor a real 'illness' or condition.
And if you think back, what you were doing the day before or that very day was probably something you'd done all your life, and that many people do without any problem... so why would it have caused such intense pain from that day onward?
Physical therapists and doctors often attribute such pain to a spasm, muscle tightness or nerve compression. They aren't totally wrong. What they miss out on is WHY the spasm or tightness happened.
They may attribute it to a movement or an injury, when really, it would be the emotional tension causing real, physiological changes in the body, including muscle tightness or increased pain sensitivity. As Dr Hanscom clarifies:
"When your circumstances overwhelm your nervous system's coping capacity, you go into fight or flight. When the fight or flight response is sustained, people get sick. The essence of chronic disease is sustained exposure to what we call threat physiology. And the essence of healing is teaching people how to go into safety because it allows the body to regenerate”. (Menda Health)
The Boiling Pot Analogy
I like to use the analogy of the emotional boiling pot to explain this 'mysterious' onset of certain chronic symptoms.
Mindbody symptoms (also known as neuroplastic pain and Tension Myoneural Syndrome) often emerge when tension in the body accumulates to an extent that it becomes painful.
This means that if you're already carrying around significant tension, due to ongoing emotional distress, then the next movement or activity could trigger a spasm as you're using a very tense body.
Think yourself as a human being who, since childhood, has been exposed to traumatic and distressing events.
Now think about every single trauma as an ingredient being added inside a large pot over the stove. Over the years, you just keep adding ingredients as you face one adversity after another.
To survive in an unfair and demanding world, you may also have adopted certain coping mechanisms, such as perfectionism, people-pleasing, the ability to foresee negative outcomes (tendency to worry), and so on. These personality traits are the emotional 'spices' that add more anxiety into the pot. We become easily triggered by situations due to whatever happened in the past, and this contributes further to our emotional dysregulation.
To get back to the pot, the contents of the pot may have been cooking gently for some years. You didn’t notice them because you had other positive things going on in your life that counterbalanced the negatives.
Then, there may have come a time in your adult life when things got tougher than usual. Maybe you broke up with someone and felt that your dreams were cruelly shattered. Maybe you started a family and had to face a lot of responsibility and pressure.
Possibly, something went wrong and you felt financially insecure, OR worse, you may have felt rejected by your family or friends due to certain life or career choices you've made.
But one day, one new misfortune, an extra responsibility or conflict adds one final ingredient that causes the pot to overflow. This may cause you to start feeling all that distress and tension in your body. It’s your body’s warning sign, telling you that something is ‘off’.
This is one of the most common yet overlooked causes of non-specific pain and symptoms that have become chronic and that haven’t resolved with conventional treatment, including widespread pains in syndromes like fibromyalgia.
Here’s the good news! chronic pain doesn’t have to last
Luckily, you don't have to unravel and 'clear' every childhood trauma or every present stressor to recover from chronic symptoms.
Remember, there was a time when you were still thriving despite adversity, when pain or symptoms weren't ruling your life in the way they do today.
All you need to do is retrieve that balance, and turn the heat down a notch. It starts with awareness so you don't end up repressing and storing all the negative emotions.
There are other components involved, of course (such as dialling down the added fear about your symptoms, prioritizing your needs and aligning more to your personal values), but I address these in other posts.
If you haven't done so already, I'd recommend starting with considering the link between your symptom onset and what was going on emotionally at the time. Think long and hard. Even a positive event, such as a job promotion or the birth of a child, could come with increased pressure and internal conflicts that take a toll on the nervous system.
And now ask yourself, could there be a case for your symptoms being emotionally generated?
If yes, you're onto something huge. Your body probably isn't broken or permanently damaged.
You can heal if you learn the correct information and dispel the false beliefs that have been causing you to fear and mistrust your body.
You can heal if you learn how to turn down the heat and create more balance and joy in your personal and professional life.
It’s your decision whether or not to take responsibility and keep an open mind to consider this empowering possibility.
It’s more common than you think, and your case may be no exception.
Please note: always rule out any serious medical conditions behind an acute onset of pain. This includes ruling out infection, tumours and organ damage. Only consider the above approach if you’ve been seen by a medical professional and cleared of such conditions.