July 2021 Video: "The Truth About Managing Chronic Pain (w/Dr. Rachel Zoffness)"

I wasn't familiar with the work of Dr. Rachel Zoffness and Dr. Zubin Damania (ZDoggMD).

The Truth About Managing Chronic Pain (w/Dr. Rachel Zoffness) - YouTube

Key Topics: 0:00 Intro 1:14 The bio-psycho-social nature of pain: phantom limb pain, the limbic system & emotion-pain connection, social contributors 9:00 The stigma of “psychological” pain and holistic approaches to managing it 16:15 The concept of “pain volume” and how emotional states affect it 18:56 Releasing negative emotion: the idea of “tea-kettling” 26:21 Fibromyalgia & trauma, pain amplification and “central sensitization” 33:14 The importance of desensitization practices for chronic pain 36:14 The benefits and risks of narcotics, the danger of removing them too fast 40:41 Sympathetic nervous system, the interaction of trauma and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) 47:44 Placebo & the mind-body connection 53:34 Anxiety/Depression and overmedicalization by Big Pharma 1:00:00 Non-pharmacologic treatments for pain, anxiety, and depression 1:04:06 The mind-gut connection: Irritable Bowel Syndrome, performance anxiety, and more 1:11:14 Emotional repression, fear of speaking and exposure therapy, PTSD 1:18:28 Imposter Syndrome and Dunning-Krueger effect, gender roles (vocal fry/uptalk) 1:25:00 The problem of emotional repression, and solutions 1:28:37 How biofeedback works

 

Very, very interesting, the unbroken link between psychological pain and physical pain. How modern medical science can get its head around the connection is at the root of the problem of chronic pain and fibromyalgia.

 

My son suffers from a relentless IBS-like existence...the part of the video I found especially interesting was Dr. Zoffness' mention that 80 to 90% of the body’s serotonin lives in the gut (we associate serotonin with the brain, which along with the gut, is our body’s emotion center). Dr. Zoffness posits that the serotonin in the gut is why our stomachs hurt or cramp or get diarrhea or constipation when we're under some form of stress.

Dr. Zoffness points out that one of the things that happens when fight or flight occurs is that digestion halts. It's similar to a bird getting scared and flying away...it sharts itself. It's called evacuation because when you're in "flight" mode, you want to be as light as possible so you can fly off (a bird) or run off (a human). When we are in a state of stress, our body oftentimes tries to evacuate. We vomit or you have diarrhea or whatever...have the urge to go to the bathroom. It’s your body telling you that it’s in a state of stress or anxiety.

 

This is very interesting and a great interview.

Piggybacking on that, I just read this on the Mayo Clinics website and it seems like they treated this patient with a Mind-Body "disorder." Mayo seems to be ahead of its time in the medical world, is it possible that they are embracing some more of Sarno's practices?

https://sharing.mayoclinic.org/2019/10/23/back-in-the-game-after-pain-rehabilitation/ (Back in the Game After Pain Rehabilitation)