Mindbody Training Centre

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 attempted to show that pain is the result of complex neurological processes triggered by injury [...]

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 symptoms. Cognitive behavioral psychotherapy (CBT) deals directly with thoughts and behaviors related to one’s problems. [...]

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 a hot spring at a spa. Generally speaking physical treatments can be classified as active [...]

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 the time, do not have to stop taking a drug because of side effects. For [...]

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 a very broad definition that includes pharmaceuticals, herbal products, supplements and homeopathic remedies. Drugs do [...]

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 identifiable source of pain (more precisely a source of pain signals going to the brain) [...]

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 treatment rarely gives anyone 100% relief. Furthermore, the success of one kind of treatment does [...]

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 marketers make claims and medical studies show rates of success, no sure-fire cures have ever [...]

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 complicated. How complicated? Take the example of the soldier shot in battle who rescues his [...]