Recovery from Chronic Pain Starts in the Brain
Chronic pain and symptoms are always real
But most chronic symptoms are triggered by the brain, not the body
Your brain uses pain as a danger signal. It’s an alarm bell designed to get your attention, so you take action against whatever is threatening you, whether by fighting, fleeing, freezing, or fawning (playing possum).
Pain exists to protect you. Acute pain is immediate, usually in response to an injury or trauma. Pain becomes chronic when it lasts longer than 3 months, and the brain gets stuck in a cycle of pain even after your body has healed.
If you are experiencing persistent pain, it is extremely important to work with medical professionals to rule out serious structural causes of pain (such as cancer, infection, or fracture). If no clear structural cause can be found, your pain is being caused by something else.
For nearly 90% of people living with chronic pain, the latest scientific research shows that their symptoms are actually the result of neurological changes in the brain, not physical damage in the body. This does not mean that the pain is all in your head or that you are making it up. What it does mean is that misfiring neural circuitry in your brain can cause or worsen physical pain, even when there isn’t an ongoing injury or structural damage in the body. This is called neuroplastic pain.
Neuroplastic pain is an umbrella term under which many pain, symptoms, syndromes, and conditions exist once they become chronic. Neuroplastic symptoms can include (but are not limited to) pain, stiffness, weakness, tingling, numbness, muscle contractions, widespread inflammation, muscle cramps, and other sensations of discomfort.
Symptoms can occur in the back, neck, knee, arms, wrists, legs, hips, and other parts of the body. In addition, many conditions that are considered “chronic” and without curative treatment are also under the neuroplastic pain umbrella, like fibromyalgia, migraines, pelvic pain, skin disorders, IBS, sciatica, ME/CFS, trigeminal neuralgia, CRPS, Long COVID, and many more.
Neuroplastic pain occurs in many people with strong, healthy minds, and is extremely common, affecting 1 in 5 adults. As is true of 95% of brain function, this happens outside of your conscious awareness and without your knowledge, meaning that the pain and symptoms are not your fault. Fortunately, these symptoms can be changed (“plastic”). The pain is 100% real, but we need to target the brain, not the body, to treat it.
Your brain’s main job is to keep you alive. It is wired to ensure your survival by continuously scanning for and detecting threats. When it believes you are in danger, it protects you by automatically shifting your body into fight-or-flight mode.
Unfortunately, the primitive part of your brain that interprets danger signals can’t distinguish between a physical threat (a hungry lion), a social threat (isolation from your group), or an emotional threat (overwhelming rage, grief, despair, shame, or terror). In our modern world, you are far less likely to encounter hungry lions, but you are constantly exposed to social and emotional threats. Yet all threats are interpreted the same way by your brain: as a fearful predator that is putting your life in danger, regardless of whether it can actually harm you or not.
When you fail to respond to this constant danger alarm (because this is all happening automatically and outside your awareness!), your brain shifts into a chronic stress state and your nervous system gets stuck on high alert. This results in changes to neural pathways in your brain and your nervous system becomes overprotective.
At any point, an overprotective nervous system can hit its tipping point and start the cycle of chronic pain and symptoms. The brain generates these symptoms to tell you that it believes you are in danger. Symptoms may begin with an injury, underlying condition, or seemingly out of the blue, though they often coincide with major life events. Because pain comes from the brain in response to perceived or actual danger, the symptoms will continue until the threat – whether physical, social, or emotional – is resolved.
Because most chronic pain is not caused by physical damage, and instead by an overprotective nervous system, treatments that focus on repairing structural issues fail to provide lasting relief. They don’t get to the root of the problem.
Fortunately, new scientific research shows that Pain Recovery Therapies (PRT, EAET, ISTDP, and other mindbody modalities) that focus on a brain-based approach to healing achieve far better relief of neuroplastic pain and illness than older approaches. The aim of this approach is to get the brain to unlearn the pain response by understanding the true source of chronic pain and symptoms (which is in the brain, not the body), and then working to rewire the nervous system for safety. Once the perceived threat is resolved and your brain recognizes that you are actually safe, the pain and symptoms will stop.
Evidence shows that this brain-centric approach is highly effective and safe for treating neuroplastic pain, including back pain, joint pain, migraines, abdominal pain, fibromyalgia, Long COVID, and many other chronic conditions. A pivotal 2021 randomized clinical trial looked at treating chronic back pain patients with this mindbody approach and found that:
Curable is a very different approach to chronic pain and symptoms. Our online program and guided app focus on the brain’s role in pain, teaching you how to find lasting relief and reclaim your life.
Grounded in the latest neuroscience and scientifically proven Pain Recovery Therapies, we help you understand why you have pain, show you it’s possible to recover, and lead you through science-backed strategies that help you heal. If you feel like you’ve tried everything but the pain remains, we’re here to help.
Meet the multidisciplinary team of board-certified physicians, pain psychologists, physical therapists, and neuroscientists that help make the Curable program possible here>
Thomson, C. J., Pahl, H., & Giles, L. V. (2024). 'Randomized controlled trial investigating the effectiveness of a multimodal mobile application for the treatment of chronic pain.' Canadian Journal of Pain
*Study Design: Curable distributes a Patient Global Impression of Change survey to individuals after they have been using the program for 30 days. This study is ongoing, but to date the analysis includes n = 10,173 respondents.
What You'll Find in the Curable App:
A personal smart coach that understands your unique pain patterns and tailors the Curable program just for you
The latest chronic pain neuroscience research in bite-sized audio lessons
100+ science-backed exercises designed to rewire your nervous system and reduce your symptoms
The Association for Treatment of Neuroplastic Symptoms (ATNS) has compiled a list more than 200 published research papers on the science behind chronic pain and treatment options. Read here.
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