Why pain is not about
wear and tear, or age

The Missing Link in Traditional Physical Healthcare

People come in and say it quietly.
“It’s probably just wear and tear.”
Or, “I guess this is just what happens as you get older.”

It’s understandable. That’s what most of us have been told. If something hurts and we’re over 40, it must be age, right? Or some damage. Or degeneration. Something slowly breaking down.

But it’s not true. That story just doesn’t hold up anymore.

We see clients in their 60s and 70s who move freely and feel great. And others in their 20s or 30s who are dealing with persistent pain that just won’t shift. Same kinds of scans. Same kinds of labels. Completely different outcomes.

It’s not about age. It’s not even about damage for most people.

Modern neuroscience has shown us that pain is far more intelligent than that. It’s not a signal of something broken. It’s a signal of protection. It’s your brain trying to help—because something doesn’t feel safe. Not emotionally unsafe. Unsafe from excessive physical overload. Functionally strained or overuse.

That protection might show up as pain. Or weakness. Or tightness. Muscle knots. Joint lock-up. Or even just the sense that something’s “not quite right.”

What we’ve found again and again is that pain usually sticks around not because of what’s wrong with the tissue, but because the brain has decided it doesn’t want that area loaded until it can trust it again.

And trust doesn’t come from strengthening. Or stretching. Or icing. Or rolling it with a spiky ball.

It comes when we find the real reason the brain is still protecting. The thing it noticed. The thing that triggered the whole chain of compensation.

Like a client we worked with recently—Kieran came in with back pain, had been told it was wear and tear. But his back moved well. No red flags. Nothing significant on testing. What we did find was a restriction in his right ankle, from a rolled sprain years earlier. The brain had quietly adjusted around it ever since, and that altered load was showing up in his back.

When we addressed the excessive pressure and strain in the ankle and movement improved there, the back pain started disappearing. Not from stretching the back. Not from fixing degeneration. But by dealing with what was really causing the brain to guard the system in the first place.

That’s not a one-off. That’s common.

So if you’ve been told it’s just your age… or your scan shows some degeneration and that’s been treated like a diagnosis… maybe it’s worth rethinking the whole story.

Because we don’t fall apart just because time passes.

If your pain hasn’t gone away, and you’ve been doing the right things, the problem might not be you. And it might not be your back or your knee or your shoulder. It might be something your brain picked up on earlier that’s never been addressed.

That’s what we look for. And once we find it, the protection often lifts quickly.

If this feels familiar, you're welcome to book a free call (below) or learn more in our ebook (below).

It might not be wear and tear. It might just be the wrong target.

See What Our Results After Treatment Typically Look Like