Healing Back Pain


Book Description

Dr. John E. Sarno's groundbreaking research on TMS (Tension Myoneural Syndrome) reveals how stress and other psychological factors can cause back pain-and how you can be pain free without drugs, exercise, or surgery. Dr. Sarno's program has helped thousands of patients find relief from chronic back conditions. In this New York Times bestseller, Dr. Sarno teaches you how to identify stress and other psychological factors that cause back pain and demonstrates how to heal yourself--without drugs, surgery or exercise. Find out: Why self-motivated and successful people are prone to Tension Myoneural Syndrome (TMS) How anxiety and repressed anger trigger muscle spasms How people condition themselves to accept back pain as inevitable With case histories and the results of in-depth mind-body research, Dr. Sarno reveals how you can recognize the emotional roots of your TMS and sever the connections between mental and physical pain...and start recovering from back pain today.




The Brain Behind Pain


Book Description

Explores the important role of the brain in both the experience of pain and its resolution. Pain is a product of the brain, which announces it after being warned by a small army of nocioceptors stationed throughout the body, always on alert for any threat to the overall system. But there can be glitches in that process. Chronic pain often occurs when the brain "remembers" pain, even though the condition that caused it may have been dealt with and resolved. Still, pain is misunderstood by many, including both sufferers and the physicians they seek out to treat it. In recent years, though, new light has been shed on just what causes pain, how it is experienced in the body, how it can go haywire, and how it can be resolved. Pain may no longer be just a symptom of some other malady. In some cases, it becomes a condition all to itself. Here, Dr. Akhtar Purvez, a seasoned physician dedicated to the study and treatment of pain, offers a comprehensive view of how chronic pain is felt, transmitted, and modified by the nerves and the brain. He explores the interplay of the physiological, anatomical, and emotional aspects of pain in addition to the mental health aspects, cultural differences, and the role of addiction in pain sufferers. Alongside this enlightening overview, Dr. Purvez provides hope to readers as he details ways of treating pain and the new approaches that are becoming available. We all experience physical pain at some point in our lives, but no longer does it have to rule our lives or impact our functioning or overall wellness if we can find the right ways to understand and treat it. This work is the starting point.




Dissolving Pain


Book Description

This guide to harnessing the power of the brain to resolve chronic pain includes a variety of simple attention exercises and a 65-minute guided audio program For four decades, Dr. Les Fehmi has been a leader in brainwave biofeedback (also called neurofeedback), training individuals how to balance and regulate their brainwave patterns to improve mental, emotional, and physical health. Dissolving Pain is based on the premise that although pain is perceived to exist in a particular part of the body, pain in fact resides in the brain. Drawing on existing scientific research and on decades of clinical experience, Dr. Fehmi offers brain-training exercises that quiet the pain signal in the brain. The exercises involve altering the way we pay attention to pain, cultivating what Fehmi calls Open-Focus Attention: a relaxed form of awareness that changes the neural blood flow and increases alpha brainwave activity (associated with reduced stress and beneficial hormonal changes). These exercises are effective in the treatment of many forms of pain including back, shoulder, neck, and joint pain; headaches; muscle pain and tension; and pain from traumatic injury. Included with the book is a link to a 65-minute downloadable audio program in which Dr. Fehmi guides listeners through the fundamental Dissolving Pain exercises. To learn more, visit openfocus.com.




Pain and Disability


Book Description

Painâ€"it is the most common complaint presented to physicians. Yet pain is subjectiveâ€"it cannot be measured directly and is difficult to validate. Evaluating claims based on pain poses major problems for the Social Security Administration (SSA) and other disability insurers. This volume covers the epidemiology and physiology of pain; psychosocial contributions to pain and illness behavior; promising ways of assessing and measuring chronic pain and dysfunction; clinical aspects of prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation; and how the SSA's benefit structure and administrative procedures may affect pain complaints.




Phantoms in the Brain


Book Description

Neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran is internationally renowned for uncovering answers to the deep and quirky questions of human nature that few scientists have dared to address. His bold insights about the brain are matched only by the stunning simplicity of his experiments -- using such low-tech tools as cotton swabs, glasses of water and dime-store mirrors. In Phantoms in the Brain, Dr. Ramachandran recounts how his work with patients who have bizarre neurological disorders has shed new light on the deep architecture of the brain, and what these findings tell us about who we are, how we construct our body image, why we laugh or become depressed, why we may believe in God, how we make decisions, deceive ourselves and dream, perhaps even why we're so clever at philosophy, music and art. Some of his most notable cases: A woman paralyzed on the left side of her body who believes she is lifting a tray of drinks with both hands offers a unique opportunity to test Freud's theory of denial. A man who insists he is talking with God challenges us to ask: Could we be "wired" for religious experience? A woman who hallucinates cartoon characters illustrates how, in a sense, we are all hallucinating, all the time. Dr. Ramachandran's inspired medical detective work pushes the boundaries of medicine's last great frontier -- the human mind -- yielding new and provocative insights into the "big questions" about consciousness and the self.




Outsmart Your Pain


Book Description

“Mindfulness and compassion practices should be in everybody’s toolbox for a happier and healthier life. [This] book is essential reading for providers who treat chronic illnesses and for those suffering from them.”—Arianna Huffington Pain can be a big, unwieldy box that we struggle to carry all day. But what if we could put down this box, unpack it, and tackle the contents one by one? Outsmart Your Pain is Dr. Christiane Wolf’s radically clear, evidence-based guide to relieving chronic pain with mindfulness, complete with twenty easy guided meditations and self-compassion practices, including: rewriting the “pain story” you tell yourself practicing loving acceptance of your body as it is mindfully working through negative emotions strengthening your inner and outer support systems. By separating your pain from the stressful thoughts and troubled feelings that come with it, you can lay down your burden and live with joy.




The Explain Pain Handbook


Book Description

For: People experiencing pain'The Explain Pain Handbook: Protectometer' is a personal workbook for people experiencing chronic pain. Based on the most up-to-date research, this handbook is a key element in the Explain Pain toolkit. It introduces the 'Protectometer' - a groundbreaking pain treatment tool - that helps you understand your personal pain formula, identify your DIMs (Danger in Me) and SIMs (Safety in Me) and provides six clear strategies for recovery from pain.




The Autoimmune Brain


Book Description

There are millions of people who experience issues related to brain health—depression, attention issues, anxiety, forgetfulness, fatigue, and even chronic pain—yet can’t figure out what’s causing their problems and can’t find any relief. They may have seen a myriad of doctors, many of whom do not take their complaints seriously, or worse, turn to the easy, often inappropriate fix of antidepressants or anti-anxiety medications. Traditional medications, supplements, or other therapies haven’t worked. No matter what their age—from children to teens or seniors—people and their loved ones are frustrated, scared, and confused by their continued poor health. Countless others display severe psychiatric symptoms that seem to come out of nowhere, ranging from tics, obsessive-compulsive behaviors and anxiety, to depression, bipolar-like mood swings, and even borderline personality disorder and suicidal ideas. Sometimes, the people affected are the only ones that notices a change to the way they think or feel, and they suffer in silence. Or, they reach out to try to get help, and are all too frequently misdiagnosed. David Younger, a world-renowned physician, provides relief to these patients and their families. His diagnostic techniques and treatment protocols will help readers identify the true cause of their symptoms and put them on a clear path to healing so they no longer feel unbalanced, out of control, forgetful, and exhausted. The Autoimmune Brain connects common brain health symptoms to the changes in the immune system, and particularly bacterial, viral, and parasitic infections. Younger explains his groundbreaking research and adds a new component: how traumatic stress (whether physical or emotional) and genetics affects this same triad as inextricable factors in initiating disease and brain health symptoms. In fact, a change in personality, behavior, coping style, and one’s emotional state may be the first clue that there is a health problem brewing somewhere else in the body. Readers will find new answers to troubling conditions, including: Alzheimer’s disease; Anxiety; Arthritis; Autism; Autonomic disturbances; Bacterial and viral infections; Bipolar Disorder; Cancer; Celiac disease and gluten intolerances; Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (now referred to as Systemic Exertion Intolerance Disease); Chronic Pain; Dementia; Depression; Endocrine Disorders; Immune modulatory therapy using IVIg; Lyme disease and co-infections; Mast cell activation syndrome; Medical cannabis; Obsessive Compulsive Disorder; Orthostatic hypotension; Peripheral Neuropathy; Porphyria; Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder; and Postural orthostatic tachycardia.




Diseases of the Brain, Head and Neck, Spine 2020–2023


Book Description

This open access book offers an essential overview of brain, head and neck, and spine imaging. Over the last few years, there have been considerable advances in this area, driven by both clinical and technological developments. Written by leading international experts and teachers, the chapters are disease-oriented and cover all relevant imaging modalities, with a focus on magnetic resonance imaging and computed tomography. The book also includes a synopsis of pediatric imaging. IDKD books are rewritten (not merely updated) every four years, which means they offer a comprehensive review of the state-of-the-art in imaging. The book is clearly structured and features learning objectives, abstracts, subheadings, tables and take-home points, supported by design elements to help readers navigate the text. It will particularly appeal to general radiologists, radiology residents, and interventional radiologists who want to update their diagnostic expertise, as well as clinicians from other specialties who are interested in imaging for their patient care.




The Body Keeps the Score


Book Description

Originally published by Viking Penguin, 2014.