Pain is a universal experience, common to all. We have more words to describe pain than any other sensation. There is a great deal of difference between how individuals feel and cope with pain, many women have a higher pain thresholds than men, athletes and manual workers tend to cope with pain better than office workers. I see my role to show you how to react positively to your pain and take control of it, thereby leading a much better way of life. Instead of using pain as an excuse to withdraw from life and become inactive find out about your pain. The first step to controlling pain is to know your enemy. Research shows that those people that take control and responsibility for their pain management recover far faster than those in ignorance and in a downward spiral of disability and despair. We are all more tolerant of productive pain such as a major life saving operation than pain caused by our stupidity or an accident. We will all endure greater pain levels if in a competition and pride is at stake. Often we will have a constant dull ache or nagging pain which will ’disappear’ when our mind gets taken off it by something we enjoy, but returns when we have nothing to do. So why not harness these innate abilities to cope with our pain?
What is pain?
It is an alarm message of damage, distress or danger which originates in tiny nerves called nocicepters. These are uncovered nerve endings found in most body tissues, with more in areas of greater sensitivity. Every nocicepter has a threshold of stimulation that has to be exceeded before it sends a message to the brain, which interprets it as pain. Pain messages travel to the brain slower than other nerve impulses, this explains why you know you have just stubbed your little toe and then feel the pain a fraction of a second later.
How do I treat pain?
Totally naturally, I do not use drugs to suppress pain I help you to get your body to heal itself. So what therapies and techniques do I use - some of the following may seem strange but they all work and are well researched and documented. If you require bone manipulation I will suggest that you see a chiropractor.
Noesitherapy and Hypnoesitherapy
I am one of very few practitioners trained in the use original form of this therapy. It has been the subject of a BBC 2 Horizon documentary and several other TV programmes. Patients are seen undergoing major surgery without conventional anaesthetic, they are totally awake and feel no pain. There is little bleeding, they recover quickly and many walk out of the operating theatre.
The therapy is based on the Vagal Response - the exact opposite of the ‘Fight or Flight’ response. In the Vagal State the body can control its pain easily as it blocks the signals from the nociceptors, giving dramatic pain relief.
Noicitherapy is excellent for treating both acute and chronic pain, including those due to life threatening diseases. It should work for everyone but if you are not able to grasp, or do not want to use the technique then there are the following therapies that can be used. Most people take several sessions to fully master the technique.
There are even fewer practitioners who combine Hypnotherapy and Noicitherapy to form a more potent form of pain control Hypnoesitherapy. This is sometimes mastered in one power session but sometimes the some people need a 'booster session'.
Hypnoesitherapy is the most powerful pain relief treatment available at Cressinghams and if mastered makes all of the methods below redundant. However, there are people how do not like the concept of hypnosis so these are their best choices.
Behavioural-Cognitive Therapy
This helps to change the way you act and think about your pain. It helps you unlock your full potential. It empowers you with 'The Three Cs'. The first of these we have already looked at - Control. The second is Commitment - to yourself and to others. The commitment is for you not to wallow alone in your pain but to do something about it and one way is to get out in the community and mix and help others where possible, return to work, do the garden, etc... The last ‘C’ is Challenge, do not see your pain as an obstacle but as a challenge you are going to overcome.
Biofeedback and Autogenic Training
These techniques are taught to relax muscle tension and to ease inflammation. They allow you to consciously warm or cool certain parts of the body at will resulting in easing the pain or reducing inflammation.
Sleep Enhancement Strategies
If pain is disturbing your sleep then you are under stress which will lower you pain threshold and a downward spiral begins. In extreme situations I will recommend certain homeopathic or herbal preparations which will help you regain a healthy sleep pattern and get enough delta-stage sleep, (which many conventional sleeping pills do not, and they are non addictive).
Massage Therapies
These can have a significant effect on pain reduction, so are frequently included in a pain management programme. As there is a page on these therapies, please refer to this for further details.
Hydrotherapy
This can range from the humble ice-pack to complex therapies using hot and cold water to gentle exercise in a pool.
Exercise
Again this may take many forms and may involve just gentle motions or move complex movements required for Tai Chi, Chi Gung, Pilates and even yoga when you are ready for it.
Stress Management/Lifestyle
This topic has its own web-page and is covered in detail there.
Nutrition
When I tell people that eating certain foods or omitting others from their diet, or by taking specific supplements it can greatly reduce their pain they are generally sceptical. To be honest a few years ago I may have been so too. However I give them a list of scientifically researched papers, carried out on willing human subjects and published in leading medical journals. These doubters soon see what I am talking about. Diet is excellent for certain pain conditions but has little impact on many others.
Nutrition works on pain in four main ways;- cooling the body’s inflammatory response, provide analgesia to the pain nerves, work within the brain to reduce sensitivity to pain and to reduce damage at the site of an injury. There is a fifth and somewhat amazing one - reducing back pain! No this is not a flight of fancy. In 1996 neurosurgeons from the John Hopkins University School of Medicine wrote in the Journal of Spinal Medicine, 'Despite its high prevalence and the multiple burdens associated with it, low back pain remains poorly understood, inadequately diagnosed, and ineffectively treated'. This was in particular reference to slipped, or degenerated discs where the nerves had become pinched or trapped, due to the soft interior of the disc being squeezed out of the tough exterior layer. In response several researchers performed post mortems on low back pain sufferers who had died and found that the blood supply to the vertebrae and discs had been reduced or even stopped by clogged blood vessels. In healthy vertebrae there are two arteries that carry oxygen and nutrients to it, when they are clogged with the same deposits that clog the heart, etc... then the cells degenerate.
The research also flagged up that one in ten people living on a typical Western diet had advanced blockage of at least one of these arteries by the age of twenty! Just think, if you are very overweight, eating lots of fat you are almost certainly going to have clogged arteries and you are putting all that extra burden on your degenerating vertebrae and discs. It is no wonder many people have low back pain. There is a special diet/lifestyle which if followed correctly has been shown to naturally reverse coronary blockages in 82% of patients. It has also worked for reversing blockages in leg arteries. (Incidental to this, and as far as I am aware no direct research has been done on this, men following this diet who were previously impotent found that they were able to achieve erections again!) So it definitely appears to unclog arteries all over the body so why not to the spine.
Arthritis researchers published a paper in The Lancet, (October 1991), reporting how omitting certain foods from arthritis suffers diet greatly reduced or even 'cured' them of symptoms. The reason for this is that those people had either food intolerances or in some case full blown allergies. Similar findings have been published in The Journal of Rheumatology. There is increasing evidence that most migraines are caused by foods or additives in them. Despite this and many other published papers many doctors do not know about the connection. It is not their fault, they are very busy and dedicated people but it would take a lifetime to read all the medical publications from around the world, so many ‘golden nuggets’ of really useful research gets lost into the realm of dusty archive shelves.
Research at Georgetown University Medical Centre showed that a special low fat diet reduced severe menstrual pain greatly in most of the volunteers who took part, and reduced it to some extent in almost all. They all lost weight, felt more energetic and had a fuller life following the diet.
Sucrose, normal sugar, has a great effect on how much pain we feel. Simply put the more sucrose you consume the lower your pain threshold. The answer is simple - eat less sugar feel less pain! These are just a few examples of how foods affect the body, the topic is vast and I have barely scratched the surface here.
Allergy and Intolerance Testing
As you can see from above these may be very important in your pain, so I do recommend that many people have tests. There is a whole web-page devoted to this, please refer to it for more information.
What pain can be helped?
As well as the pains mentioned above the techniques I use are very good for some forms of the following;- fibromyalgia, migraine, headaches, joints, digestion, menstruation and breast tenderness, carpel tunnel syndrome, herpes, shingles, urinary infections, and many others.
Remember everyone is different and degrees of success vary. There are some pains that these technique have little impact on and you will be advised if these methods are not suitable for you. These methods are not a 'quick fix', they are life-long and may take several consultations and lots of 'homework' practices to master properly. Please do not expect one visit and you are ‘cured’.
I cannot guarantee that these methods will work on any individual, and it is on that understanding that I will try to help you. These methods are well documented and used worldwide with great success for many pain sufferers.
What happens at a consultation?
I take full notes on your condition and we work out the best route of treatment for you depending on the type and severity of your pain, and other factors. I will require a detailed medical history of your problem, including any past or present conventional medical treatments.
I WILL NEVER RECOMMEND THAT YOU STOP TAKING ANY PRESCRIBED MEDICATION, OR DISCONTINUE ATTENDING ANY OUT-PATIENT CLINICS ORGANISED BY YOUR GP OR A SPECIALIST CONSULTANT.
I am here to complement their treatment NOT replace it.
Therapist - Richard Wain |
