
One of the most confusing aspects of chronic back pain is this:“If the injury is gone… why does the pain remain?” Many people struggle for years with back pain that makes no mechanical sense. Scans show nothing new. Treatments fail. The body should be healed —but the pain continues.
The Mayo Clinic has a name for this phenomenon:Central sensitization. And it may be the single most important (and overlooked) reason why your back still hurts.
According to The Mayo Clinic Guide to Pain Relief, central sensitization happens when the nervous system becomes overly reactive to pain signals—even long after the original injury has healed. Think of it like a car alarm stuck in the “on” position. Or a radio dial jammed on full volume. Your system starts overinterpreting normal or harmless signals as threats. “The brain and spinal cord can create symptoms by themselves,” Mayo researchers explain. “Even in the absence of new damage.”
Neuroplasticity means your brain can rewire itself in response to experience. That’s good news when you’re learning a skill. But not when your nervous system is learning to expect pain.
Here’s how the Mayo Clinic puts it:“As the brain becomes faster at processing pain signals, it can no longer accurately determine which inputs indicate danger. It begins to amplify pain even in response to minor or non-harmful sensations.”
This creates a vicious cycle:

Central sensitization explains a host of strange pain patterns:
It’s not “in your head,” it’s in your nervous system. And the good news is it can be reversed.
If your pain isn’t coming from tissue damage anymore, then the solution can’t be physical treatment alone. The Makepeace Method helps you recognize these patterns—and calm the alarm system that’s been stuck in the on position.
You don’t need to keep chasing structural solutions. You need to retrain your brain.
Sources:
https://connect.mayoclinic.org/blog/chronic-pain-symptoms-rehabilitation/newsfeed-post/hello/
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For decades, patients with back pain have been told the same story: your spine is damaged, your muscles are weak, your body is broken. Surgery, injections, endless physical therapy — yet the epidemic only grows. But a small group of doctors and researchers dared to say: What if the problem isn’t in the back at all?

Researchers at Johns Hopkins discovered that once the brain learns to associate certain sensations with danger, it can keep generating pain even after the injury is gone. The good news: the brain can unlearn it too.

In a landmark study from the University of Colorado, two-thirds of chronic back-pain patients became pain-free after a brain-based program—no surgery, no medication. The treatment worked not by fixing the spine, but by retraining the brain.
You’ve fought hard and tried it all, but the burden was never yours to carry forever. Your brain is ready to reset, your body to feel safe again. Pain is not who you are - it’s time to reclaim your life.