Healing Chronic Pain

PRCD

Tom Curren status
Feb 25, 2020
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In my experience as a patient, the biopsychosocial model of pain has not been widely adopted in medicine or even PT so patients continue to suffer. These clinicians discuss the model and what it means for the patient. It is consistent with "Explain Pain (2nd)" which I have in PDF if anyone wants it.
 
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Swallow Tail

Billy Hamilton status
Oct 6, 2017
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Your Mom’s House
I’ll have a look.

Chronic nerve pain is my constant companion, a major stake holder in most decisions involving physical activity as well as sitting still for long periods of time-which, oddly is the worst.

IN order of importance from my experience:
Acceptance, staying as healthy as possible - appropriate strength training/exercise,
eating well - I stay away from processed food, (low sugar and carbs, med protein n enough healthy fat to feel full),

meditation and a number of short rest breaks through the day

Alternate symptom relief strategies- TENS, ice, heat, topical CBD (actually works) with the VERY occasional Advil thrown in.
Acupuncture helps cervical but not LB symptoms for whatever reason and chiropractic helps both. IMO - they’re strictly bandaids to temporarily help with symptoms but I’ll take em!!
I do take Gabapentin a couple hrs before bed as well.

I’m also quite arthritic, and take Cosamin DS, which can be found at Costco.
Back story: My senior lab/shepherd mix became very arthritic and my vet recommended it for her. I was extraordinarily skeptical. Saw significant improvement so I started taking it and I’ve seen improvement as well.
 
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One-Off

Tom Curren status
Jul 28, 2005
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33.8N - 118.4W
How come they didn't mention deadlifts?

Jus kidding.

I watched the first one. I'd like to know more about the actual CBT practices. I accept that there is the psychological component. I acknowledge that. But my back still hurts (but it's way, way better than 18 months ago and I'm almost back to surfing shortboards again...on a 6-6 right now). Pop ups hurt more on the shortboard and I'm always sore the vening after a surf. I can't seem to think or talk my way out of it. Maybe I have to think of a name and personality for my pain, the way she uses Mrs. Beasley...
 
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Autoprax

Duke status
Jan 24, 2011
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There are a lot of causes for pain.

It's complicated.

Some times the signal is sending you the right message.

Sometimes it's not.
 

One-Off

Tom Curren status
Jul 28, 2005
14,128
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33.8N - 118.4W
Just watched the second video. The part about placebo got my attention. Thinking about the low back pain thread and how so many therapies were dismissed as snake oil. But when the pain is a false signal with no causal correlation to a physical patholgy? "Give me the placebo!"
 
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PRCD

Tom Curren status
Feb 25, 2020
12,514
8,551
113
How come they didn't mention deadlifts?

Jus kidding.

I watched the first one. I'd like to know more about the actual CBT practices. I accept that there is the psychological component. I acknowledge that. But my back still hurts (but it's way, way better than 18 months ago and I'm almost back to surfing shortboards again...on a 6-6 right now). Pop ups hurt more on the shortboard and I'm always sore the vening after a surf. I can't seem to think or talk my way out of it. Maybe I have to think of a name and personality for my pain, the way she uses Mrs. Beasley...
The pain becomes a learned response after awhile. It's the dark side of neuroplasticity. Ideally, pain care would combine movement and psychology. I've never been able to find both together. Some PTs are down with the biopsychosocial model but can't help with the depression or anxiety that comes with chronic pain. Rachel Zoffness has her own workbook. Her fees are crazy so it's definitely worth a try.

The gold-standard book on CBT is "Feeling Great" by David Burns, MD. He was one of the inventors of it and teaches it to the med school at Stanford. I did CBT with one of his inner circle and it was helpful but didn't really solve my problem. It did help with other problems in life.


Seems like you could do "Graded Exposure" for surfing by getting a bosu and gradually increasing the speed and number of pop-ups on land. That would give you more confidence, which is a SIM. Some sort of total body movement therapy really helps, like Somatics:

Think of weightlifting like graded exposure and it makes sense why it helps pain.