Fascia & Pain

Until recently fascia was the thing that surgeons cut through to get to the interesting bits. It’s cast aside to access and assess the state of internal organs, muscles, nerves, blood vessels and tendons. Fascia itself is a thin layer of connective tissue, like a sausage skin, that sits under the skin and holds everything together. The most well known fascia is probably the plantar fascia, responsible for intense pain of plantar fasciitis. Its not just on the foot. It’s everywhere, all through the body.

Superficial fascia sits just under the skin and contains nerve fibres that detect pressure, temperature and movement. There’s also a deeper layer – usefully called deep fascia – which binds muscle, organs, blood vessels and more. This fascia is rich in fibres that sense position and movement (proprioception) and pain.

Fascia And Nerves…

Fascia is an important part of our structure. Whilst its very thin its not something to be ignored to get to the big prizes of muscle and internal organs. Most human fascia contains approximately 250 million nerve endings. Roughly the same as you’ll find in skin. If you suffer from chronic pain the number of these nerve fibres that sense pain can grows. Studies in rats have suggested the amount of nerve fibres may almost triple, which may explain why its so hard to treat chronic pain. Its thought that chronic inflammation causes the proliferation of these nerve fibres.