EastsideBodywork

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It’s Black Friday season! Lock in your current rate🌟

I'm on my way to Boulder, CO, for this year's live, in-person PPDA Conference 🤩 (PPDA stands for PsychoPhysiologic Disorders association).

PPDs are chronic disorders without a medical/structural cause, also referred to as mindbody conditions, neuroplastic conditions, central sensitization, or stress illnesses.

Chronic pain is an epidemic. I am thrilled to be learning from and networking with the best in the mindbody field so we can find better ways to implement and share the new pain understanding with more people worldwide.

www.themindbodyapproach.com

Fact: Pain is always and 100% generated by the brain.

But did you know that according to a recently published research study 88% of CHRONIC pain cases are driven by learned neural pathways of the brain?!

Simply put, by the time the physical/structural cause of the original pain has healed, our brain has gotten really good at producing a pain signal.

The good news: what can be learned, can be unlearned.

Pain Reprocessing Therapy is becoming the gold standard in the treatment of chronic conditions. It can be experienced in-person or via one-on-one Zoom coaching sessions from wherever you live.

www.themindbodyapproach.com

Study: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1526590023005448

Are you making your health a priority in 2024? - https://mailchi.mp/1111118a88eb/happy-holidays-and-a-healthy-new-year-15540835

Now that Quitter's Day is behind us, what do you still prioritize in 2024?

Do you want to improve your physical health?
Do you want to get rid of pain or movement restrictions?
Do you want to reduce stress and anxiety?
Is it your goal to move more and move better?

Are you making your health a priority in 2024? Some clients wait too long before they decide to get their symptoms checked out, not realizing that the sooner they come in, the easier it usually is to reset their bodies. The longer you wait, the more complex the layers of compensation patterns become, and more sessions may be necessary.

Sometimes, clients come to see me to get out of pain, and they are absolutely not ready to even consider that the source of their pain might be their brain and not their body. And that's okay.

I have learned to avoid pushing the mindbody topic with these clients.

I usually still briefly talk about the current pain science showing that most chronic symptoms are neuroplastic in nature and point them to resources for scientific research papers, podcasts, articles, and books on mindbody conditions.

And I will then address their symptoms via manual therapy. Because at this point in time, that is what they need.

Who knows - maybe the information will resonate down the road, and they will be interested and ready to learn more about it then.

In my opinion, the power of The Mindbody Approach lies in the skills it teaches the client to address and correct their symptoms themselves without needing an outside practitioner.

I'm all for empowering my clients but I also recognize that some people are so exhausted by their pain that what they need is to just feel taken care of for a little bit.

Nothing is cookie-cutter. I do what works for YOU!

-dtr

"We call it 'physical therapy for the brain".

Pain Reprocessing Therapy was featured on the Today Show. Please check out the link below to view the clip covering Greg's story, a participant of the groundbreaking Boulder Back Pain Study and insights from lead scientist Yoni Ashar.

I would like to add that us Pain Reprocessing Therapists never dispute the findings on clients' MRIs or X-rays. What we are saying, though, is that more often than not those findings are NOT the cause of someone's pain. Retraining learned brain pathways is wlthe way to go. And there's science aplenty to back us up.

https://www.today.com/video/drug-free-treatment-offers-hope-to-patients-with-back-pain-197462597619

New therapy aims to cure back pain without drugs, surgery More than 50 million Americans suffer from chronic back pain — but a new drug-free groundbreaking treatment, pain reprocessing therapy, is helping patients and offering new hope. NBC’s Jacob Soboroff reports for TODAY.

And yet another publication - this time by the NIH - on the success of the newest treatment for chronic pain and other persistent symptoms, Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT):

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/retraining-brain-treat-chronic-pain

🧠💕💪

Retraining the brain to treat chronic pain After a treatment called pain reprocessing therapy, two-thirds of people with mild or moderate chronic back pain reported being mostly or completely pain-free.

I'm so thrilled that Pain Reprocessing Therapy for the treatment of chronic pain is finally getting the attention it deserves. It really is the new gold standard when it comes to recovering from persistent pain or other chronic symptoms.

Yoni Ashar, PhD, lead scientist of the Boulder Back Pain study was even on the NBC Today Show this morning talking about the results of this approach.

https://theconversation.com/understanding-that-chronic-back-pain-originates-from-within-the-brain-could-lead-to-quicker-recovery-a-new-study-finds-214210 #:~:text=Most%20people%20with%20chronic%20back,brain%20can%20help%20promote%20recovery.

Don’t become a VOMIT!

Every day, tens of thousands of patients worldwide become a VOMIT when imaging reports inform them of the horrifying news … arthritis, degenerative discs, disc bulges, tendon tears, etc..

Very few doctors mention that even when there are ‘abnormal’ findings on an MRI, they usually don’t line up with the physical symptoms.

Today we know that these abnormalities are NORMAL ABNORMALITIES that occur with aging. Just like wrinkles in our skin or greying hair.

A study published by the New England Journal of Medicine found that 64% of people with NO back pain have disc bulges, herniations, disc protrusions, or disc degeneration. Structural changes are normal and usually unrelated to pain.

A Swiss study confirms these findings after recruiting chronic back pain patients and seeing NO relationship between structural issues like disc degeneration/bulges and pain symptoms.

Medical imaging is vastly overused. It is a fantastic tool to rule out severe pathology such as tumors or an infection, but just a ‘finding’ in the vicinity of where someone's pain is located is not enough.

Educate yourself!

Those who become a VOMIT have been shown to have more doctors’ visits, longer lasting pain, more disability, and a lower sense of well-being.

Chronic pain is treatable!

There are many exciting new alternatives to surgery and injections and physical treatments such as Pain Reprocessing Therapy and others.

Don’t become a VOMIT!

Is striving for a ‘perfect posture’ to get out of pain becoming a concept of the past?

Well, it just might! An increasing number of clinical research findings conclude that what used to be considered abnormal posture is playing a much smaller role in chronic pain than we previously thought. Instead of looking at poor posture as the culprit and cause of pain, it is now more and more often viewed as a ‘normal variation’ or even a useful adaptation from playing and excelling in a specific sport.

Take the example of scapular dyskinesis (a pathologic alteration in resting position and movement of the scapula). It is common but poorly associated with pain (Salahm, 2023). 48% of people WITHOUT shoulder pain had scapular dyskinesis and while the correlation with pain was a bit higher in overhead athletes, it remains unproven that their ‘abnormal movement’ is the cause of pain. Maybe it’s the other way around and it’s the pain that causes abnormal movement. A study by Plummer, et al concluded in 2017 that “scapular dyskinesis is an impairment that may represent normal movement variability” and that “the occurrence of scapular dyskinesis is not influenced by the presence of shoulder pain.”

Another study by Messier, et al (2018) examined the most likely causes of running injuries: Contrary to several long-held beliefs, flexibility, arch height, quadriceps angle, rearfoot motion, lower extremity strength, weekly mileage, footwear, and previous injury are not significant etiologic factors across all overuse running injuries. What did seem to contribute to the development of pain was the participants’ body weight (>80 kg) and s*x (females were more likely to develop pain than males).

So why are we so Gung Ho on fixing poor posture? It all goes back to the traditional biomechanical model. When something hurts, doctors and therapists look at the structure where the pain is felt. If there is something visibly ‘wrong’, this must be the cause. Right?! Right??? WRONG!!!

The latest pain neuroscience research shows that the vast majority of pain is NOT caused by structural/physiological changes in the body. Instead, learned neural circuits in the brain are thought to be the culprit. But what has been learned can be unlearned, so that’s great news!

Stay tuned to learn more about integrative mind-body approaches and how YOU can apply them to retrain your brain to get rid of your pain.

Sources:

Salamh (2023): https://lnkd.in/guvgc4EY
Todd Hargrove: www.bettermovement.com
Plummer, et al (2017): https://lnkd.in/gQCx8GQg
Messier, et al (2018): https://lnkd.in/gM-RsP7F
Ashar, et al (2021): https://lnkd.in/ec5py7Kd

Watch 'PAIN BRAIN', the new documentary about a revolutionary new approach to how we treat chronic pain. Get to meet Alan Gordon, who developed Pain Reprocessing Therapy and see how he made a massive neuroscience study happen that proved how well this therapy works.

$3.99 that could literally change your life.

PAIN BRAIN PAIN BRAIN is a documentary film that explores a new understanding of chronic pain that may provide hope to the millions who suffer.