Increasing Performance (#4-Pain and Fear) Repeated practice of imagining oneself successfully performing a task leads to improvement in task performance. Mental rehearsal of physical movements alone can actually increase strength. Combined with repeated physical practice of performing the same task, … Continue reading →
If we accept that pain and fear interact with each other in a vicious cycle, each magnifying the other, it follows that whatever may reduce one may also reduce the other. One might even say that it is the very … Continue reading →
As a child I had no fear of going to the dentist until I had a tooth pulled without local anesthetic. Afterward it took years before I stopped flinching at the mere thought of going to the dentist. Getting me … Continue reading →
I believe that for most of us pain and fear are closely linked. Are they locked together? All recent attempts by scientists to define pain include reference to emotion. Imaging studies of the brain have shown a very close anatomical … Continue reading →
We may not know much about pain but we sure know what we feel. And that is really what it comes down to. Pain is a feeling that only the person experiencing it can really know. In this series I’ve … Continue reading →
If your doctor suggests psychological treatment for pain it does not mean she thinks your complaints are crazy. Of course pain can make you crazy when it persists and/or hasn’t been explained. But such treatment is not just about psychological … Continue reading →
For purposes of this discussion I have chosen to define physical treatment as any process involving movement or external stimulation of the body that may be able to reduce pain. This covers everything from acupuncture to physiotherapy to soaking in … Continue reading →
Just because a drug is known to have side effects doesn’t mean everyone who takes the drug will experience any or all of them. The severity of side effects may also differ from person to person. Most people, most of … Continue reading →
In this post I am defining a drug as anything that is taken into the body, by any route (swallowed, absorbed through the skin, injected etc.) that is meant to enhance or change a bodily or mental function. This is … Continue reading →
When pain is a symptom, surgery may relieve pain and save lives. Appendectomy, hip replacement, heart bypass surgery, removal of a tumor and trauma surgery are but a few well-known examples of beneficial surgical procedures. In each case a clearly … Continue reading →
There is research-based evidence that chiropractic, acupuncture, meditation, psychotherapy and some drugs can relieve chronic back pain. What enthusiasts for one kind of treatment over another may forget is this. In clinical studies, not everyone gets relief and any one … Continue reading →
Chronic mechanical neck/back pain, whiplash associated disorders, complex regional pain, headache, chronic post-traumatic pain, neuropathic pain and fibromyalgia constitute the bulk of my specialized practice. These categories of pain may overlap, are all incompletely understood and difficult to treat. While … Continue reading →
Pain can be a symptom. Pain can be a disease. Pain can be mysterious and hard to figure out. In fact, we still don’t completely understand what happens in the brain when you stub your toe although we know it’s … Continue reading →
I wrote earlier that the feeling of pain is produced in the brain after it processes nerve signals from the rest of the body. Interestingly, the brain itself has no pain receptors. Cutting the brain during surgery in awake patients … Continue reading →
Almost everyone views pain as a symptom. Since the time of Hippocrates it has been widely accepted that the task of medicine is to find the cause of symptoms and treat that cause. If only the symptom is treated then … Continue reading →
Many people believe that pain is either real or imaginary. They might say that real pain should be treated medically while imaginary pain should be left to the psychiatrists. But how can we tell real from imaginary pain? Pain is … Continue reading →
If you were bruised or cut and somebody told you your pain was all in your head, you might well feel indignant. Even if your pain was from a headache or strained muscle that no one else could see, you … Continue reading →