Chronic Pain
Chronic pain is defined as any pain that lasts upwards of 12 weeks. This could feel like a light headache that always seems to be there, painful joints from a long since healed knee injury, or a constantly aching back. Sufferers of this complex disorder can feel pain weeks, months or even years after an initial injury. Within the brain, changes occur in neurological systems, resultiing in the amplification of pain signals in the nervous system, and a heightened sensitivity to pain.
Chronic pain has become one of the leading public health challenges around the world, surpassing cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease, and affecting 10% to 55% of the global population. This has caused the loss of $560 billion each year in treatment costs in the US alone, and an immeasurable amount of undue suffering.
Due to the prevalence of chronic pain and the infectiveness and insufficiency of solutions to treat it, the government medical research agency of the United States commissioned a report in partnership with the Institute of Medicine to investigate this disorder. The core recommendation from the exhaustive 400 page report was that chronic pain treatments needed to addressed with what was deemed as “the whole patient”. This entails:
Physical
The Symptoms: the physical, perpetual feeling of pain. This is the most inuitive component to treat, however IMI recognised it was not the only area of concern.
Emotions
The Emotional State: the compromised emotional state of the patient, who is more likely to also suffer from depression and anxiety due to chronic pain, further exacerbating this disorder.
Beliefs
The Belief Systems and Expectations Surrounding Pain: as the perception of pain is an intensely personal experience and varies drastically from person to person, addressing the patient’s belief systems also has potential to offer great pain relief.
Social
The Social Effects of Chronic Pain: addressing the psychological effects of feeling like a burden on others due to the chronic pain, or contrastingly, having to take care of a loved one who is experiencing, or limited by, their chronic pain.
Therefore, to offer a comprehensive, effective treatment plan, not only does the physical pain need to be addressed, but also the emotional and physiological wellbeing of the patient.
In fact, research from the Institute of Medicine shows that a staggering third of chronic pain sufferers have also experienced diagnosable generalized anxiety disorder, and even higher percentages display symptoms of depression. This creates a vicious cycle where chronic pain creates anxiety and the subsequent anxiety heightens the perception of the chronic pain.
Where does BodyTalk Come in?
BodyTalk is a complimentary, non-invasive healthcare modality. As it treats the emotional and psychological aspects of chronic pain while concurrently attending to the physical distress. BodyTalk is the perfect tool to fight off all the effects of chronic pain head on. Based on Dynamic System Theory, BodyTalk considers the emotional and environmental influences that contribute to chronic pain in order to address the underlying cause of the condition, then uses various techniques to activate the brain, restructure the body's energetic patterns and promote healing from within.
Physical
The Symptoms: by improving circulation, musculoskeletal (postural) alignment and meridian flow, while simultaneously optimizing the immune system through a technique called Body Chemistry, to fight out the underlying virus, bacteria and toxicity that often cause inflammation and is the root cause of chronic pain.
Emotions
The Emotional State: by using a technique called Active Memory, BodyTalk treatments help the paDent release past traumas, anxiety, stress, and the emotional implications of living with chronic pain.
Beliefs
The Belief Systems and Expectations Surrounding Pain: utilizing the technique Active Memory also offers a way to locate limiting belief systems and work through them, thereby eliminating many limitations that stem from chronic pain in the patient’s personal, social and professional lives.
Social
The Social Effects of Chronic Pain: through a environmental balancing technique, BodyTalk treatment helps the patient to best adapt to their environment and their limitations, by addressing their hyper sensitive fight or flight mechanism (Sympathetic nervous system) and promoting a more grounded and stable state of being.