“Scientia potentia est”, the Latin aphorism meaning “knowledge is power” is the basis for transformation and freedom from suffering. In order to learn the “how” of eliminating the horrid symptoms of CRPS, one must first learn the “why”. In order to understand the root cause of this “condition”, it’s essential to understand the operative system…in other words…how the mind and body interact. Although the field of neuroscience has made tremendous strides in the past 20 years, these amazing findings have not yet filtered down to the field of medicine.
After my own odyssey in the medical mill, desperately searching for answers, I often wondered why this knowledge is not more mainstream. How much suffering could be alleviated if it was? After ping ponging helplessly to numerous specialists for 6 months, I was finally given the diagnosis of CRPS. The irony is that the diagnosis did not serve me one whit. If anything it confirmed my worst fears…that I was damaged and “broken” beyond repair, doomed to a life of existing in pain and debilitation. At the time, I was terrified and really believed my life was over. Fortunately however, I had information on the brain and chronic pain. I endeavored to delve deeper and find out if it applied to CRPS as well. !With the knowledge I gleaned from books such as “The Mind Body Prescription” and “Unlearn Your Pain”, I decided I could apply it to CRPS. This was confirmed to me by Dr. Schubiner, who reassured me that CRPS was still brain induced pain …that is faulty signals stemming from the brain and altering my physiology.
At that point I knew it was a reversible situation and I was not going to allow a label or the medical industry to discourage me. After all, I knew too much! !The emerging field of PsychoPhysiologic disorders (which includes an array of labels (such as: CRPS, Fibromyalgia , Interstitial Cystitis, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, RSI , Trigeminal Neuralgia, Tension Headaches, back pain, neck pain and foot pain) is producing study after study demonstrating the role of the brain and neural circuits.
90% of chronic pain is NOT caused by structural issues (infections, tumors etc.) but by neuro pathways in the brain that send pain signals and maintain the fear-pain-fear loop in the brain and body in a state of chronicity. Let’s start with understanding the nature of pain: All pain is real and it’s a subjective experience. The brain is what creates all sensations. All experiences are derived from learned circuits (vision, hearing, taste, how we talk, walk, ride a bike, respond to different people or activities like snakes or heights etc.). Basically, we feel what we EXPECT and the term for this is “Predictive Coding”. Pain is a decision made by the brain to protect us from danger (whether it’s real or imagined). Depending on the situation, our brain will decide if it should alert us. When our fearful thoughts about symptoms become ingrained and habitual, the danger/alarm mechanism becomes sensitized over time. I realized that the CRPS label simply meant that my brain had become extremely opinionated!!
One of the huge deficits in medicine, is the lack of knowledge between “Dynamic Pain” vs. “Static Pain”. Physicians and the costly world of alternative practitioners are trained in static pain and that is why treatments fail the patient. CRPS is a great and dramatic example of dynamic pain (or neural circuit pain) that can be turned on or off, that waxes and wanes, shifts locations, changes in intensity, morphing symptoms, and it often “spreads”. It is not the same thing as static pain like a broken leg or metastatic cancer. This is actually great news! Dynamic pain is common and reversible. We can retrain our brain out of these learned pathways and habits, by using our conscious mind.
When you have an accurate diagnosis, you employ an accurate treatment. Rather than having to “cope”, the mind body approach “cures”. !This leads me to the difference between acute pain and chronic pain. Acute pain is mediated by an entirely different area of the brain than chronic pain. Chronic pain is actually driven by the area involved with emotions and memory. When we treat pain as a symptom of somatized anxiety, we can then place it in the construct of thought. Stay with me here!! When we are embarrassed, we blush. When we are frightened our heart races and our pulse quickens. When we are aroused, sexual organs react. When we are sad, we shed tears from the eyeballs.
CRPS is no different it’s just on steroids so to speak. When we look at cases of “phantom limb syndrome”, we see how dramatically the brain creates sensations. People have reported feeling their watch on an amputated arm. Why? Because that is what their brain was used to and now EXPECTS!
When we can understand how the brain operates, we understand the cause. When we know the cause, we can implement change. Stay tuned…more blogs to come! In the meantime start reading those books and getting empowered!
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