The following is a description of the types of pain that our clients experience. The information is from a summary by Dr. Erson Religioso DPT, MS MTC. (Modern Manual Therapy)
Hyperalgesia: Increased sensitivity to painful or noxious stimuli.
- Primary: this is where there is increased sensitivity to painful or noxious stimuli. An example of this would be the area of skin where the patient strains a ligament.
- Secondary: this is where undamaged tissue near the damaged tissue has increased sensitivity as well. This would be the skin region right next to the damaged ligament.
Allodynia: increased sensitivity to normally non-noxious stimuli. Often this pain has a more centralized origin, which means the brain sensitizes the tissues in the area to protect it, as it perceives the area to be under threat. An example of this is sleeping on a bed when you have neck or back pain. Normally sleeping should not produce pain.
For our patients, education is the key. Pain in this circumstance is increased sensitivity, not damage (hurt does not equal harm). It is a response by the brain to a perceived threat. If we can educate our clients on how pain works and give them strategies to feel better about the moving the area, the perception of pain will be reduced.
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