A systems view of biological health

Section 4: Application and Practical exercises

12.2 : Coming out of distress

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How Central Sensitisation accumulates

Central Sensitisation is a particular class of chronic overwhelm in which the sensory system is also particularly strongly involved. Like chronic distress it is in effect a low-grade (or eventually may evolve into higher grade) version of PTSD.

Your body-mind is quite simple-minded, does not fully understand the difference between inside and outside. So far as it is concerned, distress and fear/anxiety/hatred/rage are all emotions related to the outside world, so if these emotions are turned inwards as a response to chronic pain, the body-mind responds as if the danger is external - and starts to turn up the volume of any sensory channel associated with the distress so you can have more information.

With an external threat, more information is possibly a good thing - and increased sensory acuity is a useful survival strategy. But distress/fear/anger turned inwards at pain also causes the survival mechanisms to turn up the volume of the pain, even making it resistant to painkillers - even to opiates - because the information has a survival value.

Central sensitisation starts to develop within 2-3 weeks of the onset of chronic pain, and tis will affect different people very differently, depending on a huge range of individual factors. I have worked clinically with many cases of pain over a period of over 25 years. My observation is that any severe pain lasting more than a couple of months results in a degree of central sensitisation (to pain) and overwhelm (numbness to everything else) in about 80% of people - and most of those people do not realise this has happened. Reversing it is - in most cases - very straightforward and not a big deal. Making it into a big deal is unhelpful in most cases - except where the severity of what has happened needs to be acknowledged in order to take it seriously and address it.

Central Sensitisation also includes (and in so doing melds back into various versions of generic distress) - food intolerances and a host of environmental hypersensitivities - such as to peer pressure, chemicals and electrosmog or even "News" or social media. Here I'm on slightly dodgy ground because there is no doubt that there is a major problem with our present society. and it's not exactly fair or right to pass on the multitude of problems and stressors innate in our society to individuals and just say "it's your problem, deal with it!"

However, needs must. The fact is that if you can increase your innate resilience, then all this will affect you less and you will be able to adopt strategies that make it much less.

Also see : Specific Applications: 4. Central sensitisation