Do you have a pain free mindset? ...Step 3 to being pain free

Do you have a pain free mindset? ...Step 3 to being pain free

Thanks so much to everyone who gave us feedback on the last 2 articles. If you missed our articles so far about how to live pain free, just go to www.saporitochiropractic.com and click on "blog" to get caught up! 

So… we were talking about the 3 step process that we have found works wonders for patients with musculoskeletal pain. That includes patients with acute pain or chronic pain, back pain or neck pain. Most readers absolutely were on board for Step 1: Physical Medicine Modalities.  Most readers agreed that they could see how using those techniques would make a difference. Step 2 also was well received. It was interesting to see that some of our readers even shared their own stories about how changing their lifestyle: diet and exercise, posture and ergonomics also helped them. That takes us to step 3 – having a pain free mindset.

Many years ago when I worked at a clinic in southern Connecticut, I had the privilege of treating 2 patients who were in the same minor traffic accident and suffered whiplash. It’s interesting to note here that the 2 patients were reasonably young, appeared in good health overall and had no complications. One of the patients was just a glass half empty kind of guy. Very stressed, worried, pessimistic. The other gentleman was very positive in his outlook. Perhaps the most positive person I’ve ever met to tell you the truth. He was very optimistic about the outcome of his treatment. Well, we treated them as we usually would patients with whiplash, and both patients had spinal imaging done which they brought in to us. Within about 2 weeks Mr. Optimism was pain free, had restored his ranges of motion and mobility and was able to return to playing on his sports team. His pessimistic friend however, did not fare as well. He did get better, but it took quite a bit longer. Last I heard he also quit playing for the team he loved because he felt limited by the possibility of his pain returning. And here’s the most interesting part of this story: Do you remember me mentioning that the patients brought in their imaging?  Mr. Optimism had a significant spinal defect! Mr. Pessimism on the other hand had a beautiful spine and healthy looking muscles and soft tissue.

I’m not saying that the patients’ attitudes were the only factors in their recovery, but that particular incident really got me thinking, so I started my own little anecdotal study. I started looking at how patient’s attitudes to pain and their outcomes correlated, and almost to the person I could predict what patients responses to treatment would be. This led me to look at the literature. I had to find out if anyone had actually studied this and what results they had found. What I saw just amazed me. Most of the studies that I saw looked mostly at patients with chronic conditions such as cancers and how their outcomes varied with their attitudes. It seemed that positive thinking was really a factor to be considered and not just airy fairy baloney!

A study that caught my attention recently, and which I now share with patients all the time, was one which showed that being stressed is worse for you than being obese, diabetic, smoking 15 cigarettes per day and being an alcoholic. It’s not easy to not to be stressed out about pain. After all, it is…well…pain. But from what I have seen in practice over the years, even though it may seem as if the pain will never go away, it’s as one of my mentors always says: “It’s just as easy to think an optimistic thought as it is to think a pessimistic thought.” And both my experience and the studies appear to agree, it’s worth thinking positively.

Patients who stop telling the story of: “Pain is just another part of getting older,” or “I’ve always had this pain,” and instead choose more optimistic thoughts tend to be the ones who use step one and step two of the be pain free process to free themselves of their musculoskeletal pain once and for all.

Regards in health,

Dr. Shepherd