A Very interesting and timely article when all kinds of medications are being called into question and alternatives being looked for. "Pain is in the Brain" so why not start there? Neuro Feedback: something worth discussing with your own medical practitioner?
Using Neurofeedback Therapy to Manage Chronic Pain
By Clare Albright
There are few physical ailments more frustrating than chronic pain. If you are a chronic pain sufferer, you may have spent many hours in your doctor's office trying to find the source of your pain. The fact is that, regardless of where in your body you experience the pain, it actually originates in the brain. Chronic pain is often the ghost of an old injury that has long since healed; the problem is that the brain and the nervous system have failed to realize this fact.
The Standard Method of Treating Pain:
Failing to find and treat the real cause of the pain, the doctor will usually resort to using some form of prescription medication to provide relief for the patient. While these medications do a fine job of masking the pain and easing the patient's suffering, they do absolutely nothing to remove the "ghost in the machinery."
If you do not eliminate the phantom pain signal that resides in your brain and nervous system, your pain may never go away and you could find yourself needing stronger and medication, and needing it more frequently, as your body adapts to each new level of medication.
While narcotics can bring much needed temporary relief of your pain, they do nothing to release the "ghost" pain signals from the brain and nervous system. In addition, many of these drugs are highly addictive and can have some serious side effects, including liver and kidney damage.
But is there any alternative to relying on medication in order to be free from the pain?
The Best Way to Eliminate Chronic Pain:
If you were to tell someone who suffers from chronic pain that they could survive without their medication, the response you get might not be printable. However, if you told them about a type of therapy called neuro feedback that would allow them to be weaned off the medications that might be ruining their body and life, they might think about it
If you sweetened the pot and told them that they would never have to deal with this pain again and could throw away their prescription forever, they would probably ask where they can sign up.
Neuro feedback has proven so effective in eliminating chronic pain that many view it as a step up from hypnosis, which has also been widely used to treat chronic pain. Since all pain occurs in the brain, the only truly effective way to treat this symptom is at its source.
With neuro feedback, the pain "pathways" that the brain uses may be altered, and patients often experience a significant recovery, even from pain that has been unresponsive to other forms of treatment. If your doctor has confirmed that you have no real injury remaining, then you could very well benefit from neurofeedback therapy to free you from your chronic pain.
How Does Neuro feedback Therapy Work for Chronic Pain?
Neuro feedback training teaches a person to control their internal physical responses using an EEG and biofeedback machine. This helps you to find the source of the phantom pain and attempt to eliminate it for good. You may learn to control responses that were previously considered automatic. Using the feedback from your brain on a computer monitor, you may gradually learn to control which wavelengths your brain uses.
Many patients experience a significant recovery and rarely suffer from any remissions, going on to lead a full, normal life practically free of the pain that has plagued them for years. Neuro feedback is changing lives every day, allowing people to return to a normal life, unhampered by chronic pain.
For more information about Neuro feedback, go to http://www.NeurofeedbackBook.com Dr. Clare Albright is a psychologist (CA License PSY11660) and a Neuro feedback practitioner.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/
Neuro Feedback: Hopefully this information will assist you in some small way and perhaps become part of your own chronic pain management. We offer this as a starting point of ideas that you might want to share with your own medical professional. Each guest writer presents their own views and they may not be ours. Just some ideas to think about and share.
