I have to think about this a bit, Chris! When my pain levels improve, I often find myself pressing on areas that were a source of significant pain and often end up going ouch! But I don't think that's because I'm trying to cause pain, it's some sort of checking mechanism because I'm trying to figure out if there's any pain left in that particular joint or not.
However, my pain tolerance has changed. My current pain levels would probably have had me back on percocet a year ago, whereas right now I'm continuing to manage without (although I'm having rather a miserable time of it).
Not sure if I've answered your questions but I'm going to think about this a bit more. Interesting ideas.
