I believe that people living with chronic pain need to know about the role of Neuroplaticity (I call this the hijacked brain syndrome).  Before discussing the role of Neuroplasticity in chronic pain management it is important to have a working definition of the term. Neuroplasticity (variously referred to as brain plasticity or cortical plasticity or cortical re-mapping) refers to the changes that occur in the organization of the brain as a result of learning and experience. A surprising consequence of neuroplasticity is that the brain activity associated with a given function can move to a different location within the brain as a consequence of normal experience or brain damage/recovery.

Research published in Pain Physician Journal (2006) indicated that 90 percent of people in the US receiving treatment for pain management are prescribed opiate medication. Of that number 9 percent to 41 percent had opiate abuse/addiction problems.

According to research published in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 933:175-184 (2001) titled “Spinal Cord Neuroplasticity following Repeated Opioid Exposure and Its Relation to Pathological Pain;” convincing evidence has accumulated that indicates there are neuroplastic changes within the spinal cord in response to repeated exposure to opioids. Such neuroplastic changes occur at both cellular and intracellular levels. Since so many people living with chronic pain are using opiates these neuroplastic changes need to be better understood.

To learn more about the hijacked brain syndrome please check out my article Chronic Pain and the Hijacked Brain that you can download for free on our Ariticles page.

You can learn more about the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System at our website www.addiction-free.com. If you are in recovery and want to learn how to develop a plan for managing your pain and medication effectively go to our Publications page and check out my book the Addiction-Free Pain Management® Recovery Guide: Managing Pain and Medication in Recovery. To purchase this book please Click Here.

To listen to a recent radio interview I did conducted by Mary Woods for her program One Hour at a Time please Click Here to go to this interview.

To read the November issue of Chronic Pain Solutions Newsletter please Click here. If you want to sign up for the newsletter, please Click here and input your name and email address. You will then recieve an autoresponse email that you need to reply to in order to finalize enrollment.
 

When most people think of stress it is usually in the context of it being a problem. While this is often the case there are also positive aspects to stress.  We need stress to motivate us and help us deal with life on life’s terms. Stress also increases our energy and fuels the fight, flight, or freeze reaction. 

For someone living with chronic pain, stress can intensify their experience of pain.  When the person also has prescription drug addiction the problem is even worse. The stress response is a combination of biological psychological and behavioral components.  Stress can also be an amplifier for chronic pain.  It is important to teach your patients about the connection between stress levels and their pain symptoms, as well as understanding that good stress management can also decrease their suffering. 

Physically, chronic pain increases stress levels and drains physical energy, while psychologically it affects people’s ability to think clearly, logically and rationally, as well as to effectively manage their feelings or emotions.  Remember that in most cases if your patients can learn to lower their stress levels, they will also experience a decrease in their perception of pain.

Of course before patients learn to manage their stress they need to be familiar with ways to assess their level of stress.  It is important to teach them how to accurately self-assess their levels of stress and then how to develop some simple but effective stress management tools. 

To learn more about how to identify stress and the importance of stress management please check out my article The Stress Pain Connection that you can download for free on our Ariticles page.

You can learn more about the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System at our website www.addiction-free.com. If you are working with people in chronic pain and want to learn how to develop a plan for managing their pain and coexisting psychological disorders including depression or addiction effectively please go to our Publications page and check out my book the Managing Pain and Coexisting Disorders: Using the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System. To purchase this book please Click Here.

To listen to a recent radio interview I did conducted by Mary Woods for her program One Hour at a Time please Click Here to go to this interview.

To read the November issue of Chronic Pain Solutions Newsletter please Click here. If you want to sign up for the newsletter, please Click here and input your name and email address. You will then recieve an autoresponse email that you need to reply to in order to finalize enrollment.

This week I’m at Valley Forge Medical Center and hospital in Norristown PA for an APM™ Center of Excellence site visit and one day staff training that they generously opened up to the professional community. They are committed to becoming the first Center of Excellence on the East Coast and are well on their way to full designation.

The Addiction-Free Pain Management® System uses as its foundation a multidisciplinary collaborative teamwork approach that includes the patient as an integral part of the team. One of the primary goals of APM™ is to provide concurrent treatment for someone with chronic pain and coexisting disorders including addiction using an evidenced-based manualized treatment approach.

Our mission is to collaborate with treatment providers who are committed to fully implement the Addiction-Free Pain Management® (APM) System. Our commitment is to recognize, support and help our APM™ Centers of Excellence (COE) partners reach as many people as possible with chronic pain and coexisting disorders who need and deserve state-of-the-art treatment.

Many treatment providers have asked me why they should go through all the time, effort and money to earn this designation when they can simply send staff to my APM™ Certification trainings and use my existing books with their clients.  This is an excellent question and I invite you to review the information on our Center of Excellence page to see if the APM™ Center of Excellence is of interest to your agency.  If you are interested please contact us to move to the next stage where we will send you a very comprehensive Center of Excellence overview and discuss fees and timing after your review.

To learn more about multidisciplinary treatment for chronic pain and coexisting disorders including addiction please check out my article The Need for Multidisciplinary Chronic Pain Management that you can download for free on our Ariticles page.

You can learn more about the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System at our website www.addiction-free.com. If you are working with people in chronic pain and want to learn how to develop a plan for managing their pain and coexisting psychological disorders including depression or addiction effectively please go to our Publications page and check out my book the Managing Pain and Coexisting Disorders: Using the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System. To purchase this book please Click Here.

To listen to a recent radio interview I did conducted by Mary Woods for her program One Hour at a Time please Click Here to go to this interview.

To read the November issue of Chronic Pain Solutions Newsletter please Click here. If you want to sign up for the newsletter, please Click here and input your name and email address. You will then recieve an autoresponse email that you need to reply to in order to finalize enrollment.