What if, when your body was hurting, you didn’t need to turn to medication to help?
What if there’s a way to live life more fully instead of staying at home, because it just hurts too much to go out?
What if you could use the power of your mind to get better?
That’s the theory behind Mindfulness Based Chronic Pain Management, or MBCPM, a 13-week program offered at the Orthopaedic & Spine Center in Newport News, Va.
MBCPM focuses on helping patients learn new ways to perceive and understand pain, which helps them to better handle it and have a better quality of life as a result, says Dr. F. Cal Robinson, a medical psychologist who is facilitating the program.
The program comes by way of Canada, where it was developed by Dr. Jackie Gardner-Nix, the medical director and founder of the NeuroNova Centre for Mindfulness Based Chronic Pain Management. It’s based on the work of the University of Massachusetts Medical Center’s Jon Kabat-Zinn, who developed a mindfulness-based concept to reduce stress in 1979.
By paying attention to pain, one can learn to find ways to live with it, Robinson says. The program introduces patients to the mind-body connection and teaches them how to meditate.
“It certainly sounds easier said than done, especially when our whole western medication system is devoted
to reducing pain and avoiding it,” Robinson says. “What we’re asking people to do is to find non-reactive ways of being with pain rather than the typical avoidance strategies.”
Research has shown that MBCPM works. In Canada, where about 12,000 people have gone through the program since 2002, studies have shown that mindfulness meditation not only decreases depression, stress, anxiety and feelings of panic, but it also improves pain management and the ability to focus and work under stress.
Patients have reported increased productivity, increased involvement in hobbies and physical activity, and even an increase in the amount of time they spend with family and friends.
In addition, Canadian patients have reported needing less medication for pain, anxiety, hypertension, depression and insomnia after participating in the program, Robinson says.
OSC is the first organization in the United States to offer the MBCPM program. About 30 patients started the program in June 2016 and are still taking classes; the next class is scheduled to start October 6, 2016.
Each class runs for two hours weekly in a group format, teaching participants how to use the program and then bring strategies home with them. Besides teaching meditation practices, the class trains patients how to better care for themselves and how better to interact with others.
In essence, the program is cognitive behavior therapy, where people change how they think in order to have a different outcome.
“Medication is important, but it’s not the only tool,” says Robinson. Those who seek out the program are often those who have had pain for a very long time, he says, and who may have come to the realization that medication isn’t really helping.
Meditation has shown to help people with pain managment who suffer from conditions such as chronic lower back pain, fibromyalgia, autoimmune disorders such as arthritis, and even migraines.
“How one feels, thinks and lives does influence how one manages chronic pain,” Robinson says. “There is an emphasis to return to life and not continually retreating.”
The program is typically covered by medical insurance, plus a $125 fee for materials. The next 13-week program will start Oct. 6 on Thursdays from 6:30–8:30 p.m. in the second-floor Pain Management Waiting Room at OSC, 250 Nat Turner Boulevard, Newport News, Va.. To register, visit www.osc-ortho.com/mindfulness, or call 757-596-1900 for more information.
