Norepinephrine - A Factor in Fibromyalgia Pain That Your Subconscious May Be Able to Curb
Normally an inhibitor of pain, norepinephrine can produce pain as well--especially in the case of fibromyalgia. Your subconscious may be able to help counteract the effects of this pain-related brain chemical.
When your brain receives a pain signal transmitted by substance P, a major amplifier of pain, it immediately ships a packet of pain-relieving chemicals to the site where substance P was first released. Included in that packet is norepinephrine.
If the pain becomes chronic, however, norepinephrine may begin to alter nerve cells so that they intensify pain signals rather than dampen them.
Norepinephrine and Fibromyalgia
The abnormal alteration of nerve cells by norepinephrine seems to play a large role in fibromyalgia pain.
Fibromyalgia often begins with a car accident or some other physical or psychological trauma. That event sets off the sympathetic nervous system, which controls the fight or flight syndrome, to be hyperactive 24/7. This can cause the sleep problems, fatigue, digestive upsets and cognitive difficulties associated with fibromyalgia.
The constant activity of the sympathetic nervous system can also cause pain. If it becomes chronic, the mechanism described above kicks in--norepinephrine begins to alter nerve cells so that more pain is produced. This leads to more hyperactivity of the sympathetic system, which leads to more pain, thus starting a vicious cycle.
This pain shows up in tender points throughout the body. Many of these points are in the neck area, which contains a large number of interconnections for the sympathetic nervous system.
Norepinephrine and Visualization
Through visualization statements it may be possible to focus your subconscious on reducing the impact of norepinephrine in the pain process. This could be true not only for fibromyalgia but for back pain or pain in the neck or other extremities, arthritis pain, or neuropathic pain (nerve pain).
Visualization statements represent the specific language that your subconscious wants you to read back to it to help ease your pain. They're simple and are targeted directly at the main factors that could bring you relief.
You can obtain these statements by learning how to communicate directly with your own subconscious mind. The process is straightforward and can be done at home by working with a facilitator over the telephone. You you need no special skills and no previous experience in working with the subconscious.
To help break the vicious cycle of more pain leading to more hyperactivity of the sympathetic system, the subconscious will probably suggest visualizing a decrease in the amount of norepinephrine that you release.
Easing the Pain
Fibromyalgia has no known cure, but we've found that visualization statements do seem to ease the pain in some cases. It may be worth exploring this technique as an alternative way of dealing with norepinephrine-related pain.
Ben Plumb is CEO and President of The Visualization Group, Inc. The company's service is delivered by people like himself who personally suffered from years of chronic pain, and used the visualization method described in this article to obtain relief when nothing else worked.