Referred Pain

Healing Referred Pain (art by Omnilov3)

Physical pain is generally “referred” pain, which means that the area of the physical pain is not the source of the pain. There may be layers of mental, emotional and spiritual trauma that to the mind will seem unrelated, however, when these layers of trauma are addressed, the physical sensation of the pain will shift and lift.

Dermatome Significance

Referred Pain: Conscious perception of visceral sensations is referred to specific regions of the body that are not sources of the sensations. Some referred pain due to visceral sensations refer to Dermatomes that send fibers to the same level of the spinal cord.

A dermatome is an area of skin supplied by sensory neurons that arise from a spinal nerve ganglion. Symptoms that follow a dermatome (e.g., pain or a rash) may indicate a pathology that involves the related nerve root. Examples include somatic dysfunction of the spine or viral infection. Certain skin problems tend to orient lesions along dermatomal lines.

In Referred Pain, sensory nerve fibers such as those from dermatomes may come together at the same spinal cord level as the general visceral afferent fibers such as those from the heart. When the general visceral sensory fiber is stimulated, the central nervous system does not clearly discern whether the pain is coming from the body wall or from the viscera, so it perceives the pain as coming from somewhere on the body wall, e.g., left arm/hand pain, jaw pain. So the pain is "referred to" the related dermatomes of the same spinal segment.

See Also

Trauma

Term first found in HGS Manual: Page 42