A patient seeing the doctor about pain for the very first time should expect the doctor to try to determine what is going on. If the source of the patient’s pain can be identified, an effective treatment can be recommended. Unfortunately, a root cause is not always found. That’s when pain is classified as being nonspecific. And guess what? There could be a mind-body connection.
The Prevalence of Nonspecific Pain
Pain is normally considered a symptom rather than a disease or condition. Imagine a patient seeing a doctor at Lone Star Pain Medicine in Weatherford, TX. The patient is suffering with facet joint syndrome. In her case, the pain she feels is a symptom of joint damage. Lone Star doctors can offer her a number of pain-relieving treatments.
Imagine that same patient complaining of back pain but with no specific cause. Lone Star doctors run all sorts of tests and cannot find anything from a biological or physiological standpoint. They are forced to label the patient’s pain as nonspecific.
How prevalent is nonspecific pain? A 2021 study evaluating low back pain in adolescents showed that more than 44% of the participants were suffering from nonspecific pain. If we apply similar numbers to pain across the board, we are looking at nearly half of all chronic pain sufferers being diagnosed with nonspecific pain.
The Pain Is Very Real
Because nonspecific pain cannot be traced to a known condition, is it possible that it is all psychosomatic? According to at least one expert interviewed by CNN, the pain is very real. It is felt in the body every bit as much as the pain from facet joint syndrome. But its mechanism could be rooted in thoughts and emotions.
Psychotherapist Nicole Sachs teaches chronic pain patients about the connection between how a person feels emotionally and physically. She promotes a revolutionary pain management system for nonspecific pain, a system that includes a form of therapeutic writing that helps patients release pent up emotions.
Sachs cites a number of studies demonstrating that chronic pain patients receiving appropriate psychotherapy report significantly more pain relief than those undergoing traditional treatments involving only the physical. One such study utilized three groups of patients:
- A group receiving traditional treatments.
- A group receiving an 8-week mindfulness stress reduction course.
- A group receiving a 12-week psychophysiological intervention.
The third group reported significantly less pain than participants in the other two groups. So much so that nearly 64% of them reported being pain free six months later. The same researcher conducting the study conducted a similar study on long COVID patients. Similar results were observed.
How the Mind and Body Are Connected
Sachs and other experts she has worked with maintain that the body can react to emotional trauma similar to how it reacts to physical trauma. When you stub your toe, the nerves in your toe send a signal to the brain to let it know of the physical emergency. The brain responds by sending pain signals back to the toe. In this way, your brain warns you that something is wrong and needs attention.
Similarly, it’s believed that repressed emotions can send signals to the brain, signals that create a similar pain response. The brain sends pain signals to various parts of the body just as if those body parts had been physically injured.
If all of this is true, letting go of repressed emotions would be one way to eliminate nonspecific chronic pain. A person whose very real physical pain is the result of repressed emotions could find relief by releasing those emotions. At least that’s the thought.
