Learning to Recognize Nonpain Symptoms

Pain has one and only one function: to alert us to danger. Chronic pain is not
telling us that we are frail, or that our bodies have lost the ability to cope with the
physical demands of life on earth. It is warning us of danger; and the danger is
acute motion starvation. No longer do we sufficiently walk, run, or otherwise
react to what was once a motion-intensive environment. Our systems are in a
dysfunctional state-they are not being refueled by motion. I know this because,
based on my work with clients at the clinic, I know that the body is using other
forms of communication besides pain to tell us

that dysfunction is happening. Even aside from pain, the body is letting us know
that motion is in short supply. We get sluggish and stiff, and we start to hurt. Our
knees and feet turn outward, our shoulders become rounded, or our hips become
misaligned. Helen, for example, came to the clinic from her home in Canada
wondering why she had recently been losing her balance so frequently. She'd fall
on the stairs at home or after getting up from a chair; the slightest stumble or
sudden change in direction when she walked would result in an embarrassing
crash landing. She hadn't had any major injuries, just bumps and bruises, but to
be on the safe side, she wanted to find out what was going on. Was it an inner ear
problem? Poor eyesight? Was she getting frail? As we talked, she told me that
since retirement, her favorite activities were reading and going to the theater-
both of
them inactive pastimes.



Having clocked up thousands of hours sitting down in the company of her favorite
authors and actors, Helen's life had such a total lack of motion that the muscles
she depended on for balance were no longer strong enough to do the job. She
couldn't walk in a straight line and had taken to unconsciously hanging on to the
walls or the furniture as she moved around. Plus, her back was hurting. But after
the first hour in the clinic getting a motion "fd up"- deliberate stimulation of key
posture and gait muscles-she was again walking in a straight line and was relieved
of her back pain. Just as a person with a fever may have a flushed complexion, the
body openly displays symptoms of ill health and dysfunction. Once
we see the problem on display, we may then correct it ourselves. Selfcare is the
earliest form of medical care-the doctor was not "in" three million years ago.

But we are ignoring these messages too often, obliterating them with stimulants,
pain-killers, surgery, and ergonomic palliatives that try to make the body conform
to man-made operating procedures and standards.

I was first confronted with pain symptoms as a twenty-twoyear-old. After working
summers as an agricultural laborer, playing varsity college football, and
undergoing Marine combat training, I had gone from peak physical condition to a
state of constant pain and disability, in the instant it took for a stranger to
squeeze a trigger. There was no slow transition. After I was wounded, I became a
different person; I could see it, feel it. I looked in the mirror and remembered
how, a short time before, I had stood upright, walked, and done simple things like
tie my shoes. Not only couldn't I do those things any longer in the same way, I
didn't look the same as I attempted them. My body moved differently; the input
and output of the motion itself had changed. That old motion-driven template,
still vivid in my mind, was what I set out to restore during my rehabilitation. In
due course, as I got closer and closer to the model and my functions returned, I
learned that the body does have a standard design, and that deviation from it is
the source of pain and incapacitation.



I've been sharing that lesson ever since, first with other injured Marines and then
with people in pain who have come to my Egoscue Method clinic when they
found that drugs and surgery were not the answer. For them, and for you,
rediscovering the human template is the first step to becoming pain free.