Vogue Australia

DAMAGE CONTROL

Alan Gordon was in graduate school when his pain began. It came out of nowhere and it wouldn’t go away. His back pain became so severe that he couldn’t tolerate sitting in the chairs at his university and ended up wheeling his own office chair around campus, from class to class, just to keep him from dropping out of his degree.

It didn’t stop with his back. Gordon had pain all over his body. By the end of his degeneration he had 22 separate symptoms, including pain almost everywhere. He got several different diagnoses from different doctors. One said he had a disc herniation, another said disc degeneration, another said arthritis. “I thought to myself, ‘I’m in my 20s, how did my brain even survive through evolution if there’s so many things wrong with my back?’” Gordon began to suspect his pain was not primarily about his body, but about his brain.

It is well-established that the brain is capable of rewiring itself to learn new neural pathways to protect us. This phenomenon is known as neuroplasticity. It is also well-established that this neuroplasticity can interact with pain signals – all pain sensations are created by the nerves sending messages to the brain that are interpreted as pain – and essentially ‘learn’ chronic

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from Vogue Australia

Vogue Australia4 min read
Makes Scents
VOGUE AUSTRALIA: You shared the same office as J'adore's original perfumer Calice Becker. What do you remember about the scent from that time, 25 years ago? FRANCIS KURKDJIAN: “In 1999, J'adore was already one of a kind. Its trail was fresh yet sensu
Vogue Australia8 min read
Infinity And Beyond
At the end of a hushed, narrow street in Shinjuku is an unassuming building with a lacquered door the colour of a candy apple, and behind that door is Yayoi Kusama's studio. When the 95-year-old artist first returned to Tokyo in 1973, after 16 years
Vogue Australia3 min read
Dan Thawley
Good aesthetics should be within everyone's reach. At least that's the ethos behind the design salon by Dan Thawley, which debuted this March at Paris fashion week and was free to all attendees. The timing of the four-day ‘Matter and Shape’ event shr

Related Books & Audiobooks