The medical establishment for years has promoted the idea that pain is always associated with the neurological system meaning it either comes from nerves or from elements of the spinal system that protect nerves like herniated discs, stenosis, pinched nerves, scoliosis or even degeneration of the spine. This concept must be eradicated because it couldn’t be farther from the truth!
Pain is a signal that results from distress of a tissue with the intent to create conscious awareness of the distress of that tissue so an intervention can be implemented to resolve the distress of the tissue which then leads to ceasing of the pain signal. Almost every tissue has the capacity to elicit a pain signal. It is the bodies defense system to let you know that something is wrong. The mechanism for doing so is through pain receptors that lie in connective that can be found in almost every tissue in the body. Once there is distress of the tissue, the pain receptors are ignited sending a signal to the brain to ask for help so the distress can be resolved.
Most people accept the idea that pain from a kidney stone is actually coming from the kidney tissue. The same can be said for a heart attack or pain in the stomach after eating something bad or pain from skin that results from a cut. In all of these situations, it is the tissue emitting the pain signal. The nervous system is nothing more than a conduit allowing the pain signals to be sent from the tissues to the brain.
The key to identifying which tissue is emitting the pain signal is to interpret the symptoms the body is presenting. Just like with pain at the chest and left arm equals a heart attack, pain at the neck, lower back and peripheral joints can be interpreted to be coming from muscle, bone or nerve. The key is to understand the symptoms. Diagnostic tests completely ignore symptoms and simply find structural abnormalities that in most cases are not even capable of creating the pain that is being experienced based on the location of the pain and other factors.
Please recognize that identifying the tissue emitting your pain is not as simple as saying it must be from a nerve. Actually, I have found in the vast number of cases, the tissue emitting the pain was not a nerve and treatment associated with the nervous system of structures of the spine did not resolve the pain at all. The pain is more apt to be coming from a muscular based cause because most pain is associated with the inability to perform functional activities due to weakness of the muscles responsible for performing those tasks.
