I want to share an email I received from a colleague regarding the effect of the DOC (Direct your Own Care) process in his practice. He is a retired orthopedic surgeon who is currently practicing addiction medicine. He and I had been in touch and I was helping him bring … Read More
Objectives: Chronic pain is a complex multi-organ disease. It is reason why there are so many different symptoms. It cannot be successfully solved with random simplistic treatments directed at just the symptoms. Addressing the root cause of stresses overwhelming your nervous system’s coping capacity requires a multi-pronged self-directed approach. It … Read More
DOC (Direct your Own Care) is a framework that breaks down chronic pain into basic parts that will enable you to discover your own solution. It evolved from my own 15-year experience suffering from chronic pain with the last seven being extreme. I was fortunate to work my way back … Read More
All living creatures survive and flourish by avoiding threats and gravitating towards rewards. Humans have language and consciousness, which creates some problems with this avoidance response. Thoughts create that same chemical reaction as a physical threat and we can’t escape our thoughts. Emotional pain is processed in a similar manner … Read More
Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com Chronic pain is at an epidemic level, affecting about a third of the adult population. In adolescents, the number of in-patient admissions rose 831 percent over a seven-year period. The reason? Many of these patients are treated for acute pain, when they are really … Read More
Photovoltaic cells The photovoltaic cell is a solar technology that converts sunlight directly into electrical current. Your nervous system “on the prowl” Your nervous system is designed to process all external stimuli and direct the musculoskeletal and various organ systems to respond in specific ways to maximize your … Read More
Trying not to think about something will cause you to think about it more. All of us know this phenomenon but we don’t know how to deal with it. The deadliest emotion we suppress is anxiety. It is a survival response and our whole being is repulsed by it. … Read More
Tinnitus is an annoying (miserable) symptom that I had experienced since 1985. In another website post, The Ringing in My Ears, I tell my story about how it has all but disappeared. I was being interviewed on a radio program and somehow the topic of tinnitus came up. The host … Read More
I had a lot going on during my junior year in high school. I had left home to attend a boarding school and was free from a chaotic household. It was also incredibly stressful trying to figure out what was going on and how I fit in. In the midst … Read More
STOMP Dr. Gordon Irving was the medical director of the Pain center at Swedish Hospital in Seattle, WA. He developed a wonderful set of resources for dealing with chronic pain. His version of a structured program was STOMP (Structuring Your Own Management of Pain). He and I co-edited this guide … Read More