Visualization for Chronic Pain

I have begun reading The Brain’s Way of Healing by Dr. Norman Doidge. It details case histories in the new medical field of neuroplasticity (the ability of the brain to change itself), and was recommended by my GP at Helios Medical Centre. It appears to be well researched, and is endorsed by neurologists, psychiatrists and physicians from institutions like the University of California, Boston School of Medicine, Harvard Medical School…

Bless Doidge for putting chronic pain as the subject of chapter one.

In that chapter, Doidge reports a way of retraining the pain circuitry in our brains that was discovered by a pain specialist in the United States named Michael Moskowitz. Not wanting to necessarily wait on a copy of Moskowitz’s “Neuroplastic Transformation Workbook” to arrive from Amazon, I will be undertaking that mental rewiring programme at home here in Christchurch, kiwi-style. I will be using as motivation and further study all the blogs and websites I can find of people doing the same. I’ll also be using that single chapter by Doidge, while continuing to inhale the rest of his book. And I’ll write a brief post each day about my findings, and changes or setbacks I notice.

There are likely to be plenty of the latter over the next six to eight weeks, which is the timeframe Dr. Moskowitz suggests before results are truly signs of neuroplastic change, and not just placebo and the result of temporary distractions from the pain. Hopefully I already have some useful experience from my seven-years-since, daily meditations.

Eventually, the visualizations and constant relentless effort of retraining the circuitry should be pretty much unnecessary, and my pain circuitry will have returned more or less to what it was before the chronic feedback cycle set in.

So, the preliminaries.

May all beings be happy. May all beings be free. May all beings share my good fortune.

Days One — 3

I’m currently on Day 5 — here are my brief catchup notes for the previous four days.

Day 1: elated. Probably mostly due to the placebo effect and the simple fact that, when in pain, anything that takes your mind off it is going to have a relaxing effect. Went to the park with my partner and her toddlers. Because of the elation, I probably overdid things. Lots of monkeying around — shoulders and neck!

Day 2: confused about the technique. Setback in terms of pain — possibly caused by trying to keep up with toddlers yesterday! Lots of questions — do I have to interrupt what I’m doing at any time of the day when I feel pain, and visualize? I am in almost constant pain sometimes for hours. Should I continue visualizing all that time? Feeling as though I can’t guarantee I’ll be on time for things if I need to keep stopping all the time. Even visiting friends was tricky today. Don’t seem to be getting any relief from the technique at all today.

Day 3: Moskowitz uses the MIRROR acronym to describe how to apply the technique. The first ‘R’ is for ‘Relentless’. So, in answer to yesterday’s questions — yes. All of that. “Anytime pain intrudes on consciousness”, writes Moskowitz, “it is greeted with visualization.”

Which seems intimidating — and yes, it’s hard to be that consistently motivated. But, reading about the experiences of others helps. Learning about the science behind the technique is motivating for me. And I’m also learning to do the visuals “on the fly” — closing my eyes at red lights to imagine the brain maps. Sometimes the visualization is bringing relief from the pain. Other times, I’m working on accepting that sometimes the visualization will be feeble or feel ineffective.

Day 4: elation returned. Feel emboldened to continue with the technique. Visualizations more vivid. Relaxation more pronounced than last two days. Quite significant relief from the pain if I stay focussed, fades as soon as I stop visualizing though. And still nothing like as much relief as Day One.

There! All caught up. From now on I will post each day separately.

Further Reading

This blog post has a reasonable summary (if you squint past the typos): http://www.lifeinslowmotionblog.com/visualization-chronic-pain-and-neuroplastic-transformation-an-introduction-to-dr-moskowitzs-neuroplastic-pain-management-strategies/

Here is Dr. Moskowitz’s book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Neuroplastic-Transformation-Workbook-Michael-Moskowitz/dp/0615814654?ie=UTF8&keywords=neuroplastic%20transformation&qid=1456245317&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1

And The Brain’s Way of Healing on Norman Doidge’s website: http://www.normandoidge.com/?page_id=1042