DO YOU HAVE CENTRAL SENSITIZATION?

If you live with chronic pain, the answer is probably yes.
 
As acute pain becomes chronic, it’s often less about structural damage and more about an over-sensitized nervous system maintained by maladaptive neuroplastic changes over time – putting your nervous system in a state of high reactivity.
 
Central sensitization is associated with the development, maintenance, and amplification of chronic pain.  It changes how the brain processes pain – misfiring nerve signals and continuing to tell the body it hurts. 

The official definition of central sensitization by the International Association for the Study of Pain is, “Increased responsiveness of nociceptive neurons in the central nervous system to their normal or subthreshold afferent input.”
 
In other words, you become more sensitive to pain and other sensory stimuli – causing more pain more often.
 
You may feel it when only lightly touched or bumped. You may feel it in different areas of the body other than the spot of the original injury. You may also have different types of feelings like achiness, stabbing, tingling, or burning, for example.
 
Features of central sensitization have been identified in nearly all chronic pain conditions, no matter the underlying cause. 
 
Some of the conditions it has been tied to include fibromyalgia, whiplash, headaches, shoulder pain, osteoarthritis, chronic fatigue syndrome, non-cardiac chest pain, irritable bowel syndrome, TMJ, neuropathic pain, complex regional pain syndrome, spinal back pain, pelvic pain, inflammatory conditions like rheumatoid arthritis, and post-cancer pain.
 
Changing it
The good news is we can change our nervous system. Central sensitization can be reversed by doing things that promote positive neuroplasticity like changing how we think about pain, react to pain, and manage pain.
 
The best treatment is a biopsychosocial approach, including pain education, physical therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, pain acceptance, sleep management, and pharmaceutical management. I got a heavy dose of all these at the Mayo Clinic Pain Rehabilitation Center.
 
Learn more

• Dr. Sletten Discussing Central Sensitization Syndrome – A descriptive and easy-to-understand video from the Mayo Clinic. 
• What is Central Sensitization? – A great read from the Institute of Chronic Pain.
• Neuroplasticity – A helpful video and easy-to-read information from painHealth.
• How to desensitize the brain and eliminate chronic pain caused by central sensitization –A comprehensive video from Dr. Andrea Furlan.

• The neurobiology of central sensitization – A more detailed journal article.
• Central Sensitization: A Generator of Pain Hypersensitivity by Central Neural Plasticity – A more detailed journal article.​

Self-management tools 

• Mindful Breathing (Mayo Clinic)
• ​Passive Muscle Relaxation to Manage Anxiety and Stress (37:28)
• Progressive Muscle Relaxation to Manage Anxiety and Stress (15:00)
• Find more here