Assessment for Neuroplastic Symptoms
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1. Originate during times of stress and/or overwhelm (new job, planning wedding, accident, loss of loved one or pet, divorce...)
2. Originate without an injury (or persist after the normal course of healing)Â
3. Symptoms are inconsistent  (they come & go)Â
4. You have/had other persistent neuroplastic symptoms now or in the past (e.g. anxiety, back pain, chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), depression, digestive issues like irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), dizziness, fibromyalgia, interstitial cystitis (irritable bladder syndrome), jaw pain (TMJ), pelvic pain, plantar fasciitis (foot pain), PoTS, PTSD, unexplained rash, tinnitus, vulvodynia, etc)
5. Symptoms spread and/or move from one side of body to another or to different body parts (head, knee, back, bladder, pelvic, jaw, fatigue, arm rash, etc.)
6. Triggered or worsened by stress, overwhelm, emotional upsets, or even just thinking about stressful situations.
7. Triggers that have nothing to do with body (e.g. smell, weather, food, certain time of day). Note: this is a common belief among migraine sufferers, however most "triggers" are conditioned learned response of the brain over time, due to the anticipation of the problem (often out of our conscious awareness). These conditioned responses can be reversed.
8. Symmetrical symptoms (on both sides of body)Â
9. Pain or symptom comes with delayed onset (e.g. go for hike & knee hurts 2 hours later)
10. Adverse Childhood Events (ACE) (often unrecognized as traumatic). Anything that affected a child’s sense of self-worth for a prolonged period of time and/or placed them in an environment which felt unsafe (physically or emotionally). Note: There is a consistent conclusion across numerous studies that show a direct corelation of ACE score and development of chronic pain later in life.
11. Identify with “Type T (Tension)” personality traits -Since childhood, we’ve developed unconscious coping strategies and defense mechanisms to feel safe and in control of our environments as we navigate life. It is very common for someone in chronic pain and symptoms to be perfectionistic, people-pleasing, hypervigilant, a worrier, over-responsibility for others at the detriment of themselves, intense self-pressure, lack healthy boundaries, bottle up emotions (especially rage, shame, sadness, guilt), avoid conflict, overachieve to gain approval, be highly analytical or intense, and lack self-compassion.
Much of what leads to chronic symptoms involves these unconscious patterns running in the background — patterns the brain thinks are helping us stay safe but are actually keeping our nervous system stuck in a stress survival response. Healing requires bringing these patterns into awareness, so we can update them consciously.Â
12. Lack of Physical Diagnosis (Doctor finds no clear cause or explanation through regulation testing). In the case of migraine, there is no confirmed physical diagnosis — although it may feel like there is because a doctor labelled it “migraine.” That label is based on self-reported symptoms, not on any objective test result or identifiable structural cause. This makes migraine a prime example of neuroplastic pain.
