Chronic Pain Relief

If you’ve seen the movie, The King’s Speech, you will immediately recognize that the king suffered from a form of Mind Body Syndrome. He had a very difficult childhood, despite (or because of) being a prince. His parents were not present (as was the custom for those days and that class) and his major source of “parental” affection was from his nanny. Unfortunately, his nanny favored his older brother who tormented him and therefore George grew up feeling less worthy, unloved, and unable to assert himself. All of this eventually led to the expression of his underlying emotional conflicts in his stammer. The origin of his stammer was clear (it was the physical manifestation of underlying psychological issues). Why did it persist for so many years? The answer is that it became a learned nerve pathway. That pattern of speech became ingrained into his nervous system over time and that was the natural way that his brain processed the signals when he was required to speak. Of course, the stammer would be more severe under times of stress, but it couldn’t be reversed until he had treatment that helped to uncover the underlying conflicts and conscious application of methods to reverse the nerve pathways.

Stuttering (or stammering, I believe these can be used interchangeably) is quite common in children. I don’t recall this, but my mother told me that I started to stutter right after my sister was born. I guess I was used to being the “prince” in my household until she came along to usurp my parents attention. Fortunately, it didn’t last too long. My mother got me to sing songs (the stutter disappeared during singing) much of the time, gave me extra attention, and the nerve pathways reversed over time.

Stuttering typically begins in childhood, but there is another form of stress-induced speech disorder that usually begins later in life that is similar to stuttering, spasmodic dysphonia. This condition occurs primarily in young adults (ages 30-50) and is more likely to affect women, which is similar to the demographics of those who suffer from Mind Body syndromes, such as headaches, fibromyalgia, back and neck pain, and irritable bowel and bladder syndromes. There is no known abnormality of the vocal cords, per se. The difficulty in speaking is variable, can be made worse with stress, and may not occur during singing or speaking in high pitched voices (when slightly different nerve pathways are activated, as apparently my mother figured out when trying to help my stuttering). Some professional singers suffer from this condition and can have difficulty in singing.

When I have conducted detailed interviews with people with spasmodic dysphonia, the typical pattern emotional events that create MBS are present. We find childhood priming events (such as emotional, physical or sexual abuse, or situations similar to those experienced by the later King George) and triggering events later in life (such as losses, situations that trigger the “danger” signals, etc.) that produce the nerve pathways leading to the characteristic speech pattern of spasmodic dysphonia.

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It has been a very long time since I posted on this blog site.  I apologize to anyone who has been missing these posts.

A number of amazing things have happened so far this year in our corner of medical practice that I tend to refer to as Mind Body Syndrome.

One momentous event in my life was that my book, Unlearn Your Pain, was published.  After two years of work, I was thrilled to see the book in print.  You can read the first chapter on my website or on the amazon.com website, where it is available for purchase.  Since I published it myself, it will not be available in stores unless it gets picked up by a distributor.  To date, the reviews have been pretty positive.  I tried very hard to create a book that would explain the scientific validation of Mind Body Syndrome in terms that anyone could understand, but would also be convincing to the discerning physician or therapist.  This journey through the neurology and the psychology of pain make up the first 4 chapters.  The fifth chapter contains the complete version of the interview process that I have developed over the past several years.  I attempted to duplicate the experience of seeing me for an extended office visit.  I hope it will allow people who suffer from MBS to recognize the connections between their life events and the onset of MBS symptoms.  Chapters 6-10 consist of the whole intervention program that I’ve developed and that I teach in small group settings at Providence Hospital, in the Detroit area.  Finally, there is a concluding chapter and a set of frequently asked questions.

I would deeply appreciate feedback on any aspect of the book.  Please feel free to email me if you have comments, suggestions, or criticisms!! Read more »

One of the great books of the twentieth century is Victor Frankel’s, Man’s Search for Meaning.  In the book, he describes the need we have to understand why things happen.  When someone gets sick, one of the first questions asked is, “Why did this happen?”  One of the more frustrating aspects of being a physician is trying to answer this question for people with cancer and other serious physical diseases.  For most people, we are forced to say, “I don’t know.”  No one is ever happy with this answer.

Fortunately for Mind Body Syndrome, we do know what is causing the symptoms: stress and emotional reactions that were typically primed in childhood and emerge later in life in response to new stressors which are linked to the earlier emotions (“emotional speed dial”), which is coupled with limited awareness or suppression of emotions and body reactions which alert us to a perceived danger.  I am currently finishing a book, entitled Unlearn Your Pain, which attempts to detail these processes from a psychological and neurological perspective.  It is axiomatic that the greater awareness and understanding of the cause of Mind Body Syndrome, the better we will be able to resolve the underlying emotional conflicts and eliminate the resulting physical or psychological symptoms. Read more »