Four-Fold Path for Pain ManagementDr_Y's four-fold path for pain management...
As presented on PBS' The New Medicine program several years ago, even many "conservative" medical institutions are now encouraging patients to learn to utilize self-hypnosis, meditation, and gentle stretching exercises alongside high-tech modern medicine for pain management. Dr. Esther Sternberg, research scientist at American University, has said, "With brain imaging, with molecular biology, cell biology, physiology, we can put all of the pieces of the puzzle together, which we certainly couldn't do even just a few decades ago." Just as the four cardinal directions, north, south, east, and west, held special types of wisdom and medicine for Native American cultures of old, and the four "elements," earth, wind, fire, and water, for the Celts (and Druids) and other indigenous cultures, Dr Y's four-fold pain management approach draws from four different "directions" or "elements" to help clients better manage their chronic pain. There are two components to managing
pain: the physiological pain signals (nerve impulses) and the
interpretation of those signals by your brain. Modern medicine's pain
killers (analgesics) intervene in the pain cycle by primarily trying to
interrupt
the pain impulses. East/Self-HypnosisThe East is the direction of the new day and of new beginnings. Accordingly, Dr. Y starts clients out on their new "day" by teaching them how to use self-hypnosis to modulate their sensations of pain (hypno-anesthetizing techniques). Starting with basic self-hypnosis for relaxation, clients then learn how to use this and hypnotic pain control techniques, including Neural Linguistic Programming (NLP) to readily access their pain control "tools". South/MeditationThe specific type of
meditation used is referred to as the Body-Scan, which is
based
on an ancient Eastern relaxation-breathing technique. As shown by the
pioneering work of Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD,
Director of the University of Massachusetts Medical Center's Stress
Reduction Clinic, this approach has been shown in research to
significantly reduce stress and pain. See Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness West/mind-body (psychobiology)This part of the path focuses on how the mind and body dynamics can be used to help
better manage pain. Important in this area is teaching clients how to
pay better attention to their body's natural biorhythms, and how to
work with those biorhythms. This is the area of chrono-therapy. Important biosynthesis goes on at the cellular level in both body and brain in preparation for the next activity period. To ignore or skip this rest phase, stresses the body and mind. In the case of pain, this can increase the intensity of pain. Learning to recognize when the mind-body is entering a resting phase--and allowing it to rest--is then just one way pain patients can be helped to better manage their pain. Also their is the importance of hypervigilance and gender. Gary B. Rollman, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, Ontario, Canada, has studied pain responsiveness in women. Clinical and laboratory studies indicate that women have increased pain responsiveness. Both biological and psychological factors are thought to contribute to this hyper-responsiveness. The psychological ones relate to hypervigilance, which has to do with monitoring, symptom attribution, and coping style. Studies of fibromyalgia, temporomandibular pain, and dysfunction syndrome, which disproportionately affects women, suggest that differential patterns of pain inhibition, stress reactivity, plasticity, and cognition may may partially explain the disparity between pain presentation and behavior in women. North/exercise and dietAmong others, Kabat-Zinn's work has shown the importance of exercise in mitigating pain. His program uses gentle, yoga-based stretching exercises but other forms of exercise can also be used. Likewise, our body needs a healthy diet. In today's fast-food society a healthy diet is easier said than done. Clients are encouraged and educated (when needed) about eating a healthy diet and about research on food supplements that may help to ease their pain.Finally, chronic pain suffers typically also must battle depression. Dr. Y will also work with them on dealing more effectively with their depression. (see our depression webpage, click here) |
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