7 Chronic Pain Causes and How SomaFlow Therapy Helps

Chronic pain comes from tight or restricted fascia, a thin, web-like tissue that connects all your muscles, nerves, and organs. When fascia becomes stiff or dehydrated, it starts pulling on multiple areas at once, creating tension and pain that seem to “travel” through the body.

This is why you might feel pain in your back one day and your shoulder or hip the next, even when scans show nothing wrong.

You can reverse chronic pain naturally. With SomaFlow Therapy, a fascia-first and nervous-system-smart approach, you can gently release these restrictions, calm your nerves, and retrain your body to move freely again.

What is Fascia and Why Does It Matter?

The term “fascia” refers to the connective tissue that wraps around your muscles, nerves, bones, and organs. It’s not something you see on an X-ray, yet it plays a major role in how pain and tension travel through your body.

Healthy fascia is slippery, flexible, and allows movement. When it’s well-hydrated and mobile, you feel good.

But when fascia becomes restricted or “sticky” (due to poor posture, injury, stress, or inactivity), it can pull across distant areas of your body, creating pain that doesn’t feel local to the original problem. (PubMed)

For example, you sprain your ankle, you heal it, but months later, you begin to get hip or lower-back pain. The fascia connected to the ankle may have tightened and shifted your movement patterns.

Because the fascia wraps head to toe, it can create weird “moving” pains, nagging aches, or tension patterns that defy standard scans or X-rays.

In short, fascia is the hidden “web” in your body. When it pulls, it can tug your body in ways you don’t expect.

7 Hidden Root Causes of Chronic Pain

Chronic pain is not just about the knee, shoulder or spine you feel hurting. It often comes from deeper, ongoing issues. 

Below are 7 major root causes, each one can feed into fascia-tension, and each one is searchable, understandable and actionable.

1. Chronic Inflammation

Why does chronic inflammation cause body pain everywhere?

When your body stays in an inflammatory state (due to arthritis, gut issues, diet, infection) it irritates tissues and fascia alike.

Persistent inflammation = fascia becomes more rigid and less able to glide.

Reduce processed foods, refine your diet, and get enough sleep. These help calm inflammation and relieve fascial tension.

Some medications for chronic pain can sometimes ease symptoms. But you should explore causes beyond the joint or muscle, such as diet, stress, and posture.

2. Nerve Damage (Neuropathy)

When nerves are damaged (as in diabetes, surgery, trauma), you can get pain even if the original tissue looks fine.

The fascia around nerves can irritate nerve endings, making pain feel like burning, tingling or “electric shocks”

Always assess nerve health, not just joint or muscle health, when pain is persistent.

3. Emotional Stress & Unresolved Trauma

Can stress cause body-wide pain?

The body-mind connection is real: stress, anxiety and emotional trauma affect your nervous system, and your fascia.

Fascia is richly innervated (lots of nerve fibres) and reacts to emotional and physical stress by tightening. 

Incorporate somatic practices (breathing, gentle movement). Calm the nervous system and your fascia will loosen.

4. Postural Imbalances & Movement Patterns

How we sit, stand, use computers, and mobile phones affects fascia more than most people think.

Slouching at a desk, uneven body alignment, and crossing legs can slowly pull fascia into tension. 

Use good ergonomics, take movement breaks, and vary your posture throughout the day.

5. Gut Health & Leaky Gut

You may not think your gut is connected to your shoulder pain, but it is. When your gut wall gets “leaky”, harmful substances trigger inflammation throughout your body.

Systemic inflammation affects fascia, muscles, and nerves.

Focus on gut-friendly foods, probiotics, and reduce sugar and processed food. The gut-body link is powerful.

6. Hormonal Imbalances

Hormones regulate how you feel pain, rest, and recover. When things like cortisol, thyroid hormones, and estrogen move out of balance, your pain threshold may drop, and fascia may respond badly.

Check for hormonal health with your doctor (especially if you are female and in perimenopause/menopause). Balance hormones to help your pain and fascia.

7. Toxic Build-Up (Environmental/Internal)

Over time, the body can accumulate toxins: pollutants, mold, heavy metals, processed food by-products. These interfere with cell function and increase low-grade inflammation.

The fascia senses this, becomes less resilient, and more irritable.

Improve your environment (air quality, water, food), support detox naturally (sleep, nutrition, movement). It’s part of the fascia story.

How Fascia + Nervous System Get Stuck in a Loop?

When fascia tightens, it doesn’t just sit still. It irritates nearby nerves, restricts movement, and triggers more tension. This becomes a self-perpetuating loop:

• Fascia tight → nerves irritated → pain signals up the chain.
• Pain causes guarding, reduced movement → fascia becomes stiffer.
• Stiffer fascia + ongoing stress/inflammation = more pain.

For these reasons, we hear phrases like this in our practice: 

• “My pain keeps changing places, I don’t know where it will flare up next.”
• “My imaging (x-ray/MRI) is clear, but I still hurt.”
• “Massage works for a whil,e but then it comes back.”
• “When I’m tired or stressed, everything flares up.”

These clues often mean: it’s not just the joint or muscle, the underlying fascia + nervous system loop is active.

SomaFlow Therapy benefits you with the fascia and nervous system to release tension, improve movement, and address the underlying patterns that keep pain recurring.

What to Do When the Pain Feels Unbearable?

If you have tried everything: rest, painkillers, stretching, even exercise, and the pain still won’t go away, it’s time to change the approach, not just the treatment. Chronic pain often isn’t about what hurts; it’s about what’s pulling behind the scenes.

Instead of forcing the body to relax, start working with it, not against it:

• Release the fascia gently: Use fascia-based techniques that help the body unwind naturally rather than pushing through tightness.
• Soothe your nervous system: A tense, overactive nervous system keeps fascia tight and pain signals high. Calming it helps everything loosen.
• Re-train how you move: Pain often lingers because of movement patterns, not injuries. Learning to move differently can stop pain from coming back.
• Address the root causes: Inflammation, poor posture, gut issues, hormonal shifts, and toxin buildup all feed chronic pain. Healing lasts longer when you treat them together.

With this kind of fascia-first, nervous-system-smart approach, the body finally has the space to reset and heal, instead of just coping.

Introducing the SomaFlow Approach: Fascia-First, Nervous-System-Smart

At the SomaFlow Institute in Las Vegas, we focus on this exact approach:

• Hands-on myofascial release (gentle, targeted work that respects your body).
• Intelligent movement training (not brute exercise) that rewires how your body moves.
• Somatic education (you learn what your body is telling you).
• Nervous-system tools (breath, rest, nervous-system reset) for long-term relief.

This SomaFlow approach helps you go beyond “just relief for now” to create a long-lasting change.

Address the Cause, Not Just the Symptom!

If you are a therapist, a caregiver, or someone living with long-term pain: this is your message. Instead of chasing the pain location only (knee, back, shoulder), ask:

• What is the fascia around that region doing?
• Is my nervous system in constant “alarm” mode?
• What root cause (out of the seven above) is active for me?

If you train or refer clients based on this, you shift from “temporary relief” to “lasting change”.

Final Word

For therapists, bodyworkers, or healers who have always felt there’s something more beneath their clients’ pain, SomaFlow training offers a way to see and treat the body in a different way. You will learn to work with fascia and the nervous system through gentle touch, mindful movement, and body awareness.

Learn more or begin your training at SomaFlow Institute and become part of a growing community of therapists redefining how pain is treated and understood.

People Also Ask

What is the most common cause of chronic pain?

The most common cause of chronic pain is lower back pain, often triggered by tight or restricted fascia. When fascia pulls unevenly across your body, it creates tension patterns that can affect your back, hips, and even your neck, which leads to pain that doesn’t go away easily.

Where should you look when the pain feels unbearable?

When pain becomes constant or unbearable, look beyond the obvious. The problem isn’t always the muscle or joint. Often, it involves fascial restriction, nerve sensitivity, gut imbalance, hormonal shifts, or even emotional stress. Understanding these hidden layers can lead to real, long-term relief.

Is life still worth living with chronic pain?

Absolutely. Chronic pain doesn’t mean a hopeless life. With the right tools, mindset, and body-based therapies like SomaFlow, you can calm your nervous system, ease fascia tension, and reclaim your energy and joy.

What disease causes constant pain all over the body?

Conditions such as Fibromyalgia and Myofascial Pain Syndrome are known for causing pain throughout the body. Both are often linked to fascial restrictions and overactive nerves, which keep the body in a loop of tension and sensitivity.