Have you been suffering with chronic pain or chronic illness and want relief? Nearly 8 million individuals in Canada live with chronic pain.* Many of these people are left searching for answers and more effective ways to experience relief from their chronic pain and symptoms.
Understanding what causes chronic symptoms can be a very helpful first step in starting to climb out of where you are at. Behind a lot of chronic pain and symptoms is what we call neuroplastic, or brain generated, symptoms.
Neuroplastic symptoms arise not from physical injury but from changes in how the nervous system processes pain. It can be linked to conditions like fibromyalgia, back pain, migraines, dizziness, chronic fatigue syndrome, neck pain, irritable bowel syndrome, tinnitus, TMJ, tension headaches and more.
What Are Neuroplastic Symptoms?
Chronic pain and symptoms that are not purely structurally based occur when the brain interprets safe sensations in the body as dangerous. The brain essentially changes to reinforce chronic pain and symptoms. These resulting sensations are neuroplastic in nature.
A Study from the New England Journal of Medicine found that 64% with structural issues in their back such as herniations, disc damage, disc bulges, protrusions and disc degeneration had no neck pain.* This is really hopeful, because it means that just because you have been diagnosed with something structural, it does not always mean it's the cause of your chronic pain/symptoms.
In chronic pain and symptoms certain neural networks become overly sensitized and then misfire as a result.
Fear that there must be something wrong with your body causing your symptoms can cause the brain to believe the body is damaged and produce more symptoms. The fear itself generates symptoms in the brain, due to the detection of threat.
The fear of the symptoms, or the frustration, hopelessness, anxiety, annoyance, and stress towards it can put your brain on high alert.
This keeps us stuck in a cycle of Symptom -----> Fear -------> Pain.
So are you saying it's all in my head? ABSOLUTELY NOT!
All pain is real.
In fact, studies have shown that whether you have a structural injury or your brain is misinterpreting signals from your body, that the pain is processed the same way in the brain.*
What are Signs of Neuroplastic Symptoms in Chronic Pain and Chronic Illness
There are some common patterns that people experience when they have neuroplastic symptoms. Here are some you might notice in yourself:
You have multiple symptoms in your body that aren't a result of multiple sclerosis, lupus, cystic fibrosis.
Your symptoms are inconsistent: sometimes they are there, but other times they aren't present. Structurally caused symptoms do not have significant variations. Having multiple unrelated physical conditions is improbable.
Symptoms originated without an Injury. Or the symptoms have persisted beyond the normal timeline of healing.
Symptoms started during a stressful time. Many clients with neuroplastic symptoms can track their symptoms starting during a stressful time in their life.
Symptoms move or spread. The pain may spread around your body or move or the symptoms may move to a larger area in the body over time.
Symptoms are symmetrical. It's unlikely to develop a chronic pain condition that is on both sides of the body, excluding neuropathy and severe arthritis.
Your chronic pain or symptoms get worse during times of stress or difficult emotions.
You've experienced adversity of some kind in your childhood.
You are a people pleaser, perfectionist, anxious or conscientious.
The pain or symptoms are delayed. You may experience the symptom after you complete an activity. This isn't something that is typical with structural pain.
The doctors don't know what is wrong and there is no identifiable cause. This can include conditions like back pain, fibromyalgia, pelvic pain, and musculoskeletal pain.
So How Do We Break Out of The Cycle of Chronic Symptoms?
To change the pattern of pain inside, we need to learn how to be with the sensation and our fear in a less intense and fearful way. Pain Reprocessing Therapy uses the term somatic tracking, which is a form of mindfulness that can be used to approach symptoms.
Approaching your symptoms with a sense of ease and gentle curiosity starts to take away the power of fear in the cycle of your symptoms.
For many people this can be challenging to do when the chronic pain or illness has created a huge amount of distress and impact in their life. Starting to just notice the fear or annoyance in your body towards the pain and bringing compassion towards it can be a helping starting place.
You may want to try noticing the uncomfortable sensation and remind yourself that it's a safe sensation that your brain is misinterpreting as dangerous. Learning to be with the sensation in the same way you would watch a beautiful sunset or sunrise starts to change the danger signals that your brain produces around your symptoms.
Pain Reprocessing Therapy: A Potential Solution
A promising treatment for neuroplastic pain is Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT). This therapy reconditions how the brain interprets pain signals, helping to break the continuous cycle of pain. In a study done through the University of Colorado, 98% of patients improved using PRT, and 66% of patients were pain-free at the end of the study.* You can read the study here.
Reach out to us to book your free 15 minute consultation or to book an appointment with one of our chronic pain therapists at info@revivecounselling.com.
References:
Pain Canada (2025): https://www.paincanada.ca/
Ashar, Y.K. et al. (2022) Effect of pain reprocessing therapy vs Placebo and usual care for patients with chronic back pain: A randomized clinical trial, JAMA psychiatry. Available at: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8482298/ (Accessed: 10 February 2025).
Pain Reprocessing Therapy Center Training (2024)
