Article by Tim Lind
It is estimated that nearly one third of our US population suffers from some form of intense pain that they have had on a regular ongoing basis. Pain is typically classified as chronic if the person has experienced repeated multiple episodes over an extended period of time, or if someone has had continual pain longer than 3 months.
Chronic pain comes in many forms; headaches/migraines, back pain, leg/sciatic pain, neck pain, arm pain/numbness, restless leg syndrome, pain from disc bulges/herniations, and pain from stenosis (a narrowing of the spinal canal). Chronic pain sufferers can also experience dizziness or vertigo and may develop phobias that prevent them from leaving their home or engaging in social activities.
Stress is the single greatest cause of chronic pain, and it comes in many different varieties including physical, chemical, and emotional stresses. Physical stresses include car accidents, work injuries, falls, repeated movements or heavy lifting. Chemical stresses include poor diet, a lack of proper nutrition, inadequate water intake, lack of exercise, smoking, alcohol, and medications. By far the greatest contributing factor to long term chronic pain is emotional stress. Examples include loss of a loved one, divorce, physical/mental abuse, anger, anxiety, financial issues, and unresolved conflicts are the major emotional triggers leading to sustained pain.
To make the problem worse, chronic pain sufferers often experience changes in their metabolism leading to weight gain, sensitivities to chemicals in the environment, food allergies, and serious changes in mood or behavior. Those who suffer with chronic pain very frequently become depressed, anxious, and have great difficulty with their sleep. Many times there are feelings of hopelessness associated. In severe cases of pain, some people may feel so lost, they even consider suicide as a solution.
Others with chronic pain find themselves unable to work, care for their family, or even enjoy the most simple pleasures of life. These people find themselves at the mercy of their chronic pain, and are not really living life, but are rather just ‘existing’. This is not the way life was meant to be, and far too many people in our community are just ‘getting by’ because the intensity of their pain is robbing them of their vital years.
In addition, many chronic pain conditions such as fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, and other neurological conditions leave doctors scratching their heads about how to treat these patients. Most commonly medications are used to treat the symptoms and in some cases surgery. This can help the chronic pain sufferer for awhile, but rarely if ever do the medications create any sort of positive change in the pain, let alone address the underlying cause of the person’s pain. Surgery, especially for bulging or herniated discs has a dismal failure rate of over 50%!
As a result of the many health issues that arise from chronic pain coupled with the mixed results of the many treatments, many people are left wondering if they will ever get out of pain. Many more are left thinking to themselves they will ‘just have to live with it’ as so many in pain are told by their doctors.
Perhaps you or someone you care about has been to all the doctors, has had all the medication, has been to therapists and chiropractors, and yet still finds themselves in pain. It is tempting to think that just because someone has been to all the top specialists, seen all the best therapists, and taken the latest drugs, that there may not be any more answers left, however, I want to introduce you to a new form of care called Brain Based Therapy.
What is Brain Based Therapy or BBT? BBT is a method of care that first focuses on the reasons why someone is experiencing chronic pain, and then assesses how well the person’s brain is functioning. The human brain is like a master super computer that is constantly monitoring, running, and adapting your body with the goal to keep things working normally. The brain was designed to function as a whole single unit that fires together. But when a person experiences too much stress, the brain is overloaded and cannot fire or work properly. As a result, the brain becomes imbalanced and one side typically over fires while the other side under fires.
Ultimately the imbalanced brain cannot respond to stress properly or control the body normally and the end result is pain. If this imbalance in the brain is not handled initially, the pain almost always becomes chronic. So when I first meet with a person who is experiencing chronic pain or any pain for that matter, it is vital to do a complete neurological assessment of the patient’s brain function.
Using specific tests and having the patient perform carefully observed movements with their body, it is possible to determine the area of the brain that is not firing normally. This is the KEY to determining if the patient is a candidate for Brain Based Therapy and it also the method I use to determine the exact treatments to use with the patient.
There are a wide variety of treatments available in BBT to help the chronic pain patient get rid of their pain. A vast majority of people see tremendous changes and are pleasantly surprised by how gentle and effective the treatments are in BBT.
About the Author
Dr. Tim Lind, DC, has been treating patients since graduating from the Los Angeles Chiropractic College with in 1990. In 1992, he founded Lind Chiropractic Clinic, PC.Since graduating, Dr. Lind has dedicated his practice to helping people with chronic conditions that have not responded well to other treatments or who have not met their recovery goals using other methods. He has advanced education in chiropractic neurology, functional blood work analysis, endocrinology, neurotransmitters and the brain, the non-surgical treatment of disc degeneration, herniation and bulging spinal discs.
Post Graduate Work:
• Spinal Rehabiliation• Paraspinal Electromyography• Functional Blood Analysis• Functional Endocrinology• Neurotransmitters and the brain• Autonomic Dysfunction• Fibromyalgia• Thyroid Dysfunction• Neurologically specific adjustment techniques• Over 300 hours in research of chronic health conditions
Dr. Lind and his wife Shelley, live in Bend Oregon. They have two girls.www.diabetes-relief.comwww.bendthyroidcenter.comwww.bendchronicpainrelief.com