Infection, Immune Load, and Why Some Pain Doesn’t Behave Mechanically
- Jan 5
- 3 min read
When numbness, tingling, burning, weakness, or radiating pain appears, the default assumption is mechanical compression. A nerve must be pinched. A disc must be bulging. A joint must be misaligned.
Sometimes, that assumption is correct.
But when symptoms fluctuate unpredictably, resist structural correction, or fail to correlate cleanly with imaging, another mechanism must be considered: immune and neurologic load.
The nervous system is not only a signaling network.
It is an immune-responsive tissue.
When immune activity increases—due to infection, inflammation, medication effects, or immune activation following vaccination—neural signaling can change even in the absence of structural compression.
In these cases, pain is not coming from pressure alone.
It is coming from irritation, sensitization, and reduced tolerance within the nervous system itself.
The Nervous System Under Immune Stress
Infections such as Lyme disease, Epstein–Barr virus (EBV), varicella reactivation, and other viral or bacterial exposures can activate immune responses within the central and peripheral nervous systems. This does not require overt tissue destruction to alter function.
Inflammatory signaling can:
increase neural excitability
lower firing thresholds
distort sensory input
alter motor output
reduce tolerance to mechanical load
The result is a nervous system that reacts more strongly to inputs that were previously tolerated.
This is why symptoms may feel mechanical—but do not respond mechanically.
When Structural Care Helps, But Only Briefly
Manual therapy, rehabilitation, and movement-based care often help in these situations—not because they remove the cause, but because they temporarily calm neural signaling.
Touch, movement, and joint input can:
reduce sympathetic tone
enhance parasympathetic regulation
improve circulation
decrease threat perception
Pain decreases. Sensation normalizes. Strength improves.
And then the symptoms return.
Not because the care was incorrect, but because the immune-driven irritation remains active. The nervous system re-enters a protective state once the temporary calming effect wears off.
A Clinical Example: When Radiculopathy Isn’t Mechanical
Consider a patient who presents with neck pain and radiating symptoms into the arm—classic signs of cervical radiculopathy. Structural testing suggests nerve involvement. Imaging may be inconclusive or show mild findings that don’t fully explain the symptoms.
Somatic therapies provide little or inconsistent relief.
Later, facial weakness appears. Bell’s palsy develops. Further evaluation leads to laboratory testing, which reveals Lyme disease.
In this case, the origin of the radicular symptoms was not mechanical compression. It was central and peripheral nervous system inflammation driven by infection. The musculoskeletal system became unstable because the system governing it was under immune stress.
The mechanical system could not tolerate load because the origin of control was inflamed.
Medications, Vaccines, and Neural Sensitivity
This same pattern can appear following certain medications or vaccinations—not as a universal reaction, but as an individual neuro-immune response.
Numbness, tingling, burning sensations, or transient weakness are documented neurologic side effects in some individuals. These symptoms reflect changes in immune signaling and neural excitability, not structural damage in most cases.
Again, the mechanism is not compression.It is altered nerve signaling.
When these symptoms are treated as purely musculoskeletal—without recognizing the immune or neurologic contribution—care often stalls. Structural correction may help temporarily, but durability is limited until the nervous system settles and immune load decreases.
Why Load Tolerance Drops
One of the most important concepts in this discussion is load tolerance.
A nervous system under immune stress has less capacity to manage mechanical input. Movements that were previously tolerated become provocative. Light compression feels severe. Minor postural stress triggers disproportionate symptoms.
This explains why:
symptoms fluctuate day to day
pain worsens during immune stress or illness
imaging findings don’t match symptom severity
rehabilitation feels “too much” despite being appropriate
The system is not weak.It is prioritizing defense.
Structural Care Still Has a Role
None of this means structural care is inappropriate.
On the contrary, somatic therapies are often essential for maintaining function, reducing pain, and supporting nervous system regulation during recovery. They help the body tolerate life while deeper processes resolve.
But they are not substitutes for addressing immune load.
When infection, immune activation, or neuroinflammation is present, durable resolution requires:
immune support
nutrient sufficiency
metabolic restoration
nervous system regulation
removal or resolution of ongoing insult
