Chronic Pain — A lot of lonely soldiers out there. This one is my story.
English is not my first language, I'm French and used the translation. I hope the soul of the text survived the crossing.
Neuroplasticity
It all started with sciatic pain in my left leg. An MRI, fast-tracked. "Small herniated disc."
For me, it was a slow descent into hell.
The brain, magical and infernal machine, capable of joy or tears.
Fragile and resilient.
When a smell can pull up a memory. When a color brings back joy, or sadness, drags you back to childhood nightmares, the brain learned that. It built billions of neural connections to let us become, over time, who we are.
The years pass. Fears accumulate. Knowledge grows. The capacity to understand the world expands.
Connected to everything. Disconnected from ourselves. No room left to listen inward. But the body screams.
I searched for a thousand solutions to my chronic pain. Medication, sport, yoga, physio, osteopaths, buying a new chair (which I'm genuinely grateful for). But nothing led me to the exit door. Instead, a piece of my soul slipped away each day.
So I kept searching. Other leads. Other studies. Other ways of seeing things. Sensing that this pain ran deeper.
I strongly recommend The Way Out by Alan Gordon and his research on pain reprocessing therapy. It changed something in me.
Neuroplasticity, it's like learning to drive. At first you stall, grind the gears, nothing flows. Then slowly everything becomes fluid, reactive to the millisecond in front of an incident, an accident. You can change the radio station while shifting gears without thinking. The brain no longer needs to concentrate. The connections are just there.
Pain works the same way.
At first the injury is acute. It hurts. It lasts a while. But depending on your brain's capacity to retain a threat, to adapt, depending on your stress threshold, your brain will learn that pain. It will know it by heart. Like you do. And it will be there with you.
There are entire bodies of research, MRI-proven, showing that real pain (real to the brain) with no apparent physical cause can trigger a full physical storm of suffering.
The point isn't to say the pain isn't real. It is. But in chronic pain, when physical causes have been ruled out, when doctors no longer understand your suffering, when you no longer have a clear answer, the pain can become something the brain has learned.
Think of it like a radio volume dial.
Before the acute pain crisis, the brain listens to the body at low volume. A tightness, a discomfort, a twinge, background noise, no alarm needed.
But after a phase of acute pain that lasted too long, the brain has turned up the volume. Now it reads the faintest signal as a threat and fires pain to warn you of danger. Stress feeds fear. Fear raises the brain's alert level. Alert raises the volume. And you are drowning in pain.
By the time you sit down in the chair you're afraid of, your brain is already there, sending fear and pain signals before anything has even happened.
The brain can literally fry you in an electric chair that isn't on.
I have neuroplastic pain.
My herniation is years old now. The physical recovery should be done. But the pain is still here. Strong.
It has become part of my life. Part of my fears, my anxieties. At home there's me, my wife, my daughter, my dog and my pain.
It sits at the table with us. Watching to see if I dare to laugh. It shows up during activities with my daughter. During work. Even sitting down to watch a film.
Because yes, it loves everything that matters to me. It wants to be there. And the more precious a moment is to me, the louder my fear of its arrival knocks at that door.
My brain, on high alert, calls in the temple guardian. My pain. Just to remind me to be careful.
I understand now that the key is teaching my brain that things are not dangerous. Accepting my fears. Naming them. Sorting through them. Showing it the way out.
Yes, my pain is real. But I have to show my brain it's no longer a threat.
I don't have all the answers. But I finally have a path toward the door.
With the help of a good osteopath, showing my body what it can actually do without falling apart. With yoga and Pilates on Apple Fitness. With meditation on my pain, not running from it, trying to teach my brain something different, slowly things are coming back. I won't rewrite Alan's book here. But I'm grateful for that door. That path. I'll share it with everyone I love who is suffering.
Chronic pain. Something I discovered at 40.
The years pass and pain is a magnificent thief, of time, of love, of hope.
Between the phases that improve and the relapses after periods of hope, it's a perfect washing machine for destroying everything. Little by little the smiles fade. The soul like a watercolor painting dissolving in the rain.
Every day trying to give the best of myself to the people I love, and slowly losing who I am. Like watching my former self standing somewhere behind me.
You always need to push for medical opinions. Pain and internal causes must be treated, I still need to book an appointment with a rheumatologist. But understanding the mechanics of pain, and the fear that fuels it, is a decisive step.
I'll look at every face of suffering differently now.
A lot of lonely soldiers out there.
619 million people in 2020 living with chronic low back pain.
I just needed to put this somewhere, for myself and for anyone out there fighting the same quiet battle. Not looking for upvotes. Just solidarity.
I'm also posting this to trace the journey. Somewhere to look back from, one day, when this is finally behind me.
If any of this resonates, read The Way Out by Alan Gordon. Seriously.