# Past Events ##### Untangling Pain --- ![](https://youtu.be/9WlZR9z3diw) --- ## tl;dr **Pain is shaped by past experiences** - Past pain experiences can influence current pain perception and reporting - TED Talk: Why Things Hurt – Lorimer Moseley - First bush walk: Bitten by eastern brown snake, brain thought it was a twig, no pain - Second bush walk: Just a twig, but intense pain due to past snake bite memory - Pain created by the brain 100% of the time **Beliefs influence pain intensity** - Research on breast surgery patients - Those who believed pain meant cancer returned had worse pain - Beliefs, emotions, stress, and meaning shape pain, not just tissue damage **Personal story: tonsillitis and Quincy** - Recurrent tonsillitis and two episodes of Quincy - Fear and belief of recurrence made later sore throats more painful - Pain science helped reduce fear, anxiety, and pain - Pain influenced by belief and past experience **Questions to reflect on** - What past pain events may be reinforcing danger beliefs? - Are they true? Can we predict the future? - You’ve handled it before → you can handle it again --- ## Transcript Now, our past experiences, especially our past pain experiences, can influence our current pain perception and the reporting of our pain. And I've got two examples of this to help you understand. The first one comes from Lorimer Moseley from a TED talk, Why Things Hurt. And again, I highly recommend that you go and check this out. He tells a story of how years ago he was walking in the bush. He's Australian, by the way. He explains how he was wearing a sarong at the time and something touched the outside of his left leg. Whatever it was intense enough to activate the fire alarms, which then sent a message to his spinal cord and up to his brain. And as we know, when the message is received by the brain, it begins to evaluate how dangerous the situation is and whether the pain is actually necessary. So in this case, Moseley explained that through his whole life growing up, he used to scratch his legs on twigs. And so that's what he believed was happening here. Or at least that's what his brain believed. So his brain believed it not to be a dangerous situation after all. And it nudged him to kick off the twig and just carry on his way. Now what actually happened was that he was bitten by an eastern brown snake. And although the poison had been enough to activate the fire alarms, it was the brain that didn't believe there was any danger thinking again that it was just a twig like it'd always been in the past. So it believed it didn't need to do anything about it such as producing pain despite the fact that it'd been bitten by a highly venomous snake, it's crazy, right? Not necessarily. After all the initial bite apparently is believed to be generally painless and often difficult to detect, which is actually why it's so dangerous. But that's not the interesting part of the story. It's what happened later that actually matters. So six months later, apparently Lorimer was walking in the bush again when something touched the outside of his left leg again. This time he was in absolute agony. he described it as a white hot poke of pain screaming up his leg. So again, the fire alarms were activated, these nociceptors, which sent a message, there's a danger on the outside of your left leg, in the skin, mate, to his spinal cord, and then up to his brain. And again, the brain had to evaluate how dangerous that really was. So it asks, have we been in this situation before? And yes, we have. So what happened last time? We almost died. And so the brain decides that it's going to make it hurt so much that it can do nothing else and, in theory, stay safe. Lorimer continued to screaming in pain. Until one of his mates actually looked at his leg and actually discovered that he hadn't been bitten again at all. In fact, the only thing that was there was a little tiny scratch from a twig. Now the pain in those two situations was totally different because of the meaning and in this case, past experiences. And again. It highlights the fact that pain is created by the brain 100 percent of the time with no exceptions. Now another example of how past pain experiences can influence pain as well as beliefs. and what we believe is causing our pain is actually seen in patients after breast surgery. So I found a research paper that talked about how it is normal to experience pain after surgery, which makes sense, right? Because the body is healing after all. And potentially pain is produced by the body to keep us still so that the body can knit the tissues back together. But the research has found that patients who believed that the pain they were experiencing was due to their cancer returning, actually experienced much more intense and unpleasant pain. So this is in relation to those patients who believed that their pain was just normal, that it was due to another cause, for example, again, that they believed that their pain was a normal part of the healing process after surgery. So again, regardless of what is actually happening in the tissues in the body. Pain is in fact influenced by what we believe, and again, our past experiences and again, our emotions and stress. Again, this all makes sense because if our brain believes that we are in danger, such as believing that our cancer has returned, it's gonna do everything it can to protect us. And again, even if it is only from a perceived threat. So even if there is no cancer at all, or if the threat is a twig, but it's perceived as being a snake again, it's always better to be safe than sorry. Right? So again, our brain and our body adapt and they influence our pain experience in order to keep us safe. How does this relate to your pain? It could be that when you are having a flare up, that your past pain experiences make you believe that this is going to be the same again as it was before, and that something bad is happening. Now, I also have a personal experience with this. I had tonsillitis on and off for years, which I now realize was my body telling me that I was burned out. As a result, I had Quincy actually twice. And what basically, Quincy is where your throat swells. And it's where they need to aspirate, draw the rubbish out of the throat and I was struggled to breathe. I couldn't swallow. So again, this makes sense. I went to hospital and it's. Not pleasant at all. In fact, it's extremely unpleasant and it's really fucking scary. Now, after the second time I had it, I remember having a sore throat afterwards. And this wasn't straight away. This was a few months afterwards, but I remember having a sore throat and I was utterly and totally convinced that the tonsillitis and the Quincy was returning and I would have to go back to hospital and I wouldn't be able to breathe or swallow and I wouldn't be able to work. I wouldn't be able to look after my kids and oh my God, I got myself so worked up and I had to keep reminding myself that is not always the case and I really had to work through all this pain science stuff and I knew this very deeply and it still influenced me, but thankfully I kept reminding myself It didn't stop the fear at all. It was still there and the anxiety. But I could keep working through it and reminding myself that it's not always the case that what has happened in the past doesn't mean it's gonna happen again in the future. It's not necessarily gonna be the same thing and it wasn't you know things settled and I didn't end up in hospital. And I haven't been in hospital since for it. I haven't. Touch wood. I haven't had tonsillitis again and not a Quincy. But the pain definitely increased because of my belief. But once I was able to talk myself down, things did subside, and I still had a sore throat, nothing major. But again, I could see how my past experiences and my past pain events were influencing my current pain experience. So for you, What past experiences or past pain events may be coming up and reinforcing those beliefs or beliefs of danger and threat. Because those are DIMs and we need to keep reinforcing that we are safe and even if we do end up in that same place again, you can handle it. Because you've been there before, you handled it before and you can handle it again. We need to work out, again, what past experiences are influencing our DIMs and to really question them. Are they true? Can we predict the future? Because the answer, pretty much guaranteed, is no. --- Next lesson → [[Untangling Pain – Module 2 Lesson 11|next lesson]] %% - [[Past Pain Experiences can Influence Current Pain Perception]] - [[Lorimer Moseley’s Snake Bite Story]] - [[beliefs and what we believe is causing our pain—is actually seen in patients after breast surgery]] - [[Personal Experience of pain and belief – Tonsillitis and Quincy]] - [[Reflection Questions re pain and belief and past experiences]]