I've been neglecting the blogs in favor of immersing myself in learning all about glia - two books arrived, and I confess I've become captivated by these little critters.
The books are Glial Neurobiology (2007, Verkhratsky and Butt) and Neuroglia (2005, Kettenmann).
In particular, microglia are involved in pain production, it seems. I'll be delving into more about this on the Neurotonics blog soon.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Antidote for ordinary 'sturm und drang'?
Eric Matheson at Feel Better...move well blog recently posted a couple youtube videos on meditation, Cognitive Neuroscience of Mindfulness Meditation. His post contains a Jon Kabat-Zinn Google presentation which I already posted about earlier this year, plus a new one I hadn't seen before, another google talk by Philippe Goldin.
I've watched about 20 minutes of it so far, and so far I'm captivated. He makes the point that meditation is moving out of the domain of faith-based activity, is becoming a scientific curiosity instead. A wide range of applications are developing out of earlier work done by Kabat-Zinn's work with stress reduction.
Maybe someday there will even be simple, straight-forward, pre-packaged, no-need-for-any-belief-system, non-pharmaceutical, evidence-based mental exercises to manage ordinary human angst, the 'sturm und drang' of ordinary existence, life in an achingly vulnerable human brain that evolved so fast that it learns too much about too many things too soon, and must spend far too much time growing its own buffers somehow; buffers, which if they are merely defense mechanisms, can sometimes do more harm than good.
I've watched about 20 minutes of it so far, and so far I'm captivated. He makes the point that meditation is moving out of the domain of faith-based activity, is becoming a scientific curiosity instead. A wide range of applications are developing out of earlier work done by Kabat-Zinn's work with stress reduction.
Maybe someday there will even be simple, straight-forward, pre-packaged, no-need-for-any-belief-system, non-pharmaceutical, evidence-based mental exercises to manage ordinary human angst, the 'sturm und drang' of ordinary existence, life in an achingly vulnerable human brain that evolved so fast that it learns too much about too many things too soon, and must spend far too much time growing its own buffers somehow; buffers, which if they are merely defense mechanisms, can sometimes do more harm than good.
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Moving back into this body
In reference to Car-free at last:
Lately I've surfaced, after about 8 years of being at the computer every day for hours, to notice the effects that have accumulated. For one thing my environmental standards (i.e., housekeeping levels) have slipped some. Too-much-sitting has definitely moved me away from my own physicality. Selling the car was a ritual move, a symbol of intent, a sacrifice made to impress upon my own brain how seriously I am inclined to view any threatened parting of me from my aging (nearly 60), softening, and too heavy body, and its lack of stamina, increased sense of windedness. I walk to work and back a couple times a day, always have, a total distance of not quite 4 km. The work itself is physical. This however, is definitely no longer enough to counter the entropy I feel in this body. It just doesn't feel like a happy body anymore. I do not have overt pain, just a feeling of stiffness when I first stand up and a feeling of inner resistance or friction, lack of space inside.
It's noticeable enough that I actually joined and am going to go to a gym today.
I will have to suck up the displeasure I feel at descending a staircase into a basement affair, with the smell of rubber and steel and sweat, and the anxiety of feeling physically incompetent before the gaze and possible judgment of who knows how many hard-bodies who've already been there working out for years. I paid my $ and I have the right to be there, using equipment and adding CO2 to the cloud already in the room. The payoff will not be a lovely athletic body, because I lack such genes - instead my payoff will be a stronger humanantigravitysuit that fits better, hopefully feels better and may actually manage to dump some of its excess ballast.
I'm going to keep a food diary too - I hear it's a good CBT way to handle weight loss. For sure, if ideomotor (nonconscious) eating was adequate to sustain normal weight, I'd be normal weight instead of overweight. So, it's high time for a new strategy.
Later:
I'm back from the initial foray to the gym. It didn't smell bad at all. There is even fresh smelling air pumped in from somewhere, somehow. Everything was spanking clean; even though the equipment has seen better days in terms of its paint job and shininess, it was clean, and this is huge. The place is in a basement, with the ubiquitous row of treadmills facing a row of TV sets with the sound turned down, but the music was not clanging or too loud, and I have to say, I've never been on a smoother more well-appointed treadmill in my life, or a nicer smoother workout bike.
A bit of treadmill, a bit of bike, pushing a few machines around a bit (noting where my shoulders feel a tad stiff meanwhile), all in all about 45 minutes worth, and I walked out with quads that felt like cotton candy and a definite sense of being back in contact with my abs. Well, with what I have that supposedly are abs.. Plus, feeling way less stiff.
I found this today: Protein coingestion stimulates muscle protein synthesis during resistance-type exercise. Hmm. Maybe this is why I've been craving red meat lately - red meat which I almost never eat. I'm about to eat it two days in a row. I thought it was just me succumbing to magical thinking, that eating meat would help me build some of my own, but maybe there's actually something scientific to it.
Update July 16/08:
The diary thing is a good idea. So is the protein idea. I've eaten three sirloin steaks, two chicken breasts and two large slabs of salmon. Not much else, because I don't feel very hungry after such a large amount of protein... not until the next day. (But it is fruit season and I do love fruit... so a bowl of fruit with some non fat yogurt is a treat most days.) An unexpected side benefit is deeper, better, longer sleep. In the past week, I've been to the gym twice, have exercised at home with weights twice, have lost 5 pounds and 4 inches. I feel better, and am more sure now that I can reclaim this physicality for at least a few more decades.
Update July 26/08
So far so good. Weightloss has slowed way down, of course, as my body fights to retain itself and resources shift around, but the high protein thing seems to be working for me in terms of keeping my appetite reduced and me from being at the mercy of it. I'm rarely "hungry"- by "hungry" I mean, "can't think about anything but food and trying to find something to put into the mouth." One night I got "hungry," did succumb to eating a piece of cheese, which switched it off. I wrote it down in the food diary of course.
So, so far: weightloss: 6.5 lbs., no change in BMI, inches lost: 5. Trips to gym, still only 2. But I did jog about a third of a km. That's rare.
Update Aug 7/08
Sticking with the plan, keeping the diary, not exercising much, lost a bit more (8 pounds so far total).
Update Aug 11/08
I'm looking forward to the day, way off in the mists of future time, when I won't be all jazzed about having lost another half pound. But I did. And I'm jazzed. Eight point five.
I'm also jazzed because I finally figured out a way to get vegetables into myself without gagging on them - I hate the way they taste, most of them. It's not their fault, it's just the way it is between me and vegetables. They get stuck between my teeth, and they taste bitter, and they don't feel good in my system. Usually.
Well, I discovered that throwing broccoli or celery or whatever, into a heavy-duty blender, with some low-fat milk, and whizzing them to death first, makes them go down a lot easier. It's instant "cream of whatever" soup. The veges are still quite raw. Heating the "soup" up in a big latte cup, in the microwave for a couple minutes, makes the whole experience (of eating veggies, for me) a lot less nauseating. Then I can "drink" it - it even gets a sort of nice foam on top.
It's best to make this fresh each time. I tried storing some "cream de broccoli soup" in the fridge overnight, and the next day the taste had gone bitter.
August 21/08 Update
A total of ten pounds are off as of today. Ten pounds, fifty days.
That works out to one pound every 5 days. A fifth of a pound per day. Sixteen ounces in a pound. Three point two ounces per day. Not a lot of effort. Actually, less effort than I should have been making probably. Most of that was in the first week however, so... there will be a slower rate. But it barely matters. I've got the rest of my life, so I'm not especially worried how slow it goes.
What I really am struck by is how I have "learned" not to care about eating so much/as much, by writing each item down. I'm eating more vegetables (as cream soup) and liking them more. As long as I rotate the protein so it's not the same two days in a row, I'm cool with that too. I've had a dish or ice cream and a slice of that fudge sold at the local fair (and enjoyed them). They did not seem to slow the process appreciably. My metabolism must therefore be improving a bit. These food indiscretions seemed not to awaken any sleeping appetite dragons.
Sept 12/08 Update
Down two and a half more pounds. I'm sticking with the flesh- 1 or 2% milk - veg- and/or - fruit-smoothie diet quite easily. As long as weight keeps peeling off, I don't care how long it takes, really. I'm not tired of the food and I'm not hungry. It's very paleolithic + dairy, except that I have a good blender and access to food shops, unlike my human primate ancestors. The big change is the food diary idea. It's a really good tool - seems to be precisely what I needed for getting out of the nonconscious maze.
October 4/08
Down by 15 pounds as of today. Have been at this weight before but never so mindfully, never by calculatedly descending the metaphoric mountain, usually just by falling off it somewhere at some point, and bouncing back up. The food diary helps a lot. I do not skimp on portions. I merely eat one meal a day (involving fish, fowl or meat), and a snack (fruit smoothie) for dinner. Yes, it's slow. I realize that. But I also am not especially willing to resort to (artificially added) exercise yet. I walk everywhere (total about 40 minutes/day), physically carrying everything I need to move from A to B, and am actively moving about at work and using upper body strength all day. I think it's enough. I'm trying to learn to eat less. That's what this is really about. As Harriet Hall says in her review of Michael Pollan's book, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto,
November 22/08
Down by 20 lbs. from start in June. Feel better. Definitely.
I've noticed I always gain a pound or so for a few days after socializing. I attribute this to having stress - I'm an introvert and socializing is always (no matter if I enjoyed myself or not) stressful. And I do not indulge calorically when I socialize, so I suspect it's from my cortisol level having gone up a little, for a little while.
Lately I've surfaced, after about 8 years of being at the computer every day for hours, to notice the effects that have accumulated. For one thing my environmental standards (i.e., housekeeping levels) have slipped some. Too-much-sitting has definitely moved me away from my own physicality. Selling the car was a ritual move, a symbol of intent, a sacrifice made to impress upon my own brain how seriously I am inclined to view any threatened parting of me from my aging (nearly 60), softening, and too heavy body, and its lack of stamina, increased sense of windedness. I walk to work and back a couple times a day, always have, a total distance of not quite 4 km. The work itself is physical. This however, is definitely no longer enough to counter the entropy I feel in this body. It just doesn't feel like a happy body anymore. I do not have overt pain, just a feeling of stiffness when I first stand up and a feeling of inner resistance or friction, lack of space inside.
It's noticeable enough that I actually joined and am going to go to a gym today.
I will have to suck up the displeasure I feel at descending a staircase into a basement affair, with the smell of rubber and steel and sweat, and the anxiety of feeling physically incompetent before the gaze and possible judgment of who knows how many hard-bodies who've already been there working out for years. I paid my $ and I have the right to be there, using equipment and adding CO2 to the cloud already in the room. The payoff will not be a lovely athletic body, because I lack such genes - instead my payoff will be a stronger humanantigravitysuit that fits better, hopefully feels better and may actually manage to dump some of its excess ballast.
I'm going to keep a food diary too - I hear it's a good CBT way to handle weight loss. For sure, if ideomotor (nonconscious) eating was adequate to sustain normal weight, I'd be normal weight instead of overweight. So, it's high time for a new strategy.
Later:
I'm back from the initial foray to the gym. It didn't smell bad at all. There is even fresh smelling air pumped in from somewhere, somehow. Everything was spanking clean; even though the equipment has seen better days in terms of its paint job and shininess, it was clean, and this is huge. The place is in a basement, with the ubiquitous row of treadmills facing a row of TV sets with the sound turned down, but the music was not clanging or too loud, and I have to say, I've never been on a smoother more well-appointed treadmill in my life, or a nicer smoother workout bike.
A bit of treadmill, a bit of bike, pushing a few machines around a bit (noting where my shoulders feel a tad stiff meanwhile), all in all about 45 minutes worth, and I walked out with quads that felt like cotton candy and a definite sense of being back in contact with my abs. Well, with what I have that supposedly are abs.. Plus, feeling way less stiff.
I found this today: Protein coingestion stimulates muscle protein synthesis during resistance-type exercise. Hmm. Maybe this is why I've been craving red meat lately - red meat which I almost never eat. I'm about to eat it two days in a row. I thought it was just me succumbing to magical thinking, that eating meat would help me build some of my own, but maybe there's actually something scientific to it.
Update July 16/08:
The diary thing is a good idea. So is the protein idea. I've eaten three sirloin steaks, two chicken breasts and two large slabs of salmon. Not much else, because I don't feel very hungry after such a large amount of protein... not until the next day. (But it is fruit season and I do love fruit... so a bowl of fruit with some non fat yogurt is a treat most days.) An unexpected side benefit is deeper, better, longer sleep. In the past week, I've been to the gym twice, have exercised at home with weights twice, have lost 5 pounds and 4 inches. I feel better, and am more sure now that I can reclaim this physicality for at least a few more decades.
Update July 26/08
So far so good. Weightloss has slowed way down, of course, as my body fights to retain itself and resources shift around, but the high protein thing seems to be working for me in terms of keeping my appetite reduced and me from being at the mercy of it. I'm rarely "hungry"- by "hungry" I mean, "can't think about anything but food and trying to find something to put into the mouth." One night I got "hungry," did succumb to eating a piece of cheese, which switched it off. I wrote it down in the food diary of course.
So, so far: weightloss: 6.5 lbs., no change in BMI, inches lost: 5. Trips to gym, still only 2. But I did jog about a third of a km. That's rare.
Update Aug 7/08
Sticking with the plan, keeping the diary, not exercising much, lost a bit more (8 pounds so far total).
Update Aug 11/08
I'm looking forward to the day, way off in the mists of future time, when I won't be all jazzed about having lost another half pound. But I did. And I'm jazzed. Eight point five.
I'm also jazzed because I finally figured out a way to get vegetables into myself without gagging on them - I hate the way they taste, most of them. It's not their fault, it's just the way it is between me and vegetables. They get stuck between my teeth, and they taste bitter, and they don't feel good in my system. Usually.
Well, I discovered that throwing broccoli or celery or whatever, into a heavy-duty blender, with some low-fat milk, and whizzing them to death first, makes them go down a lot easier. It's instant "cream of whatever" soup. The veges are still quite raw. Heating the "soup" up in a big latte cup, in the microwave for a couple minutes, makes the whole experience (of eating veggies, for me) a lot less nauseating. Then I can "drink" it - it even gets a sort of nice foam on top.
It's best to make this fresh each time. I tried storing some "cream de broccoli soup" in the fridge overnight, and the next day the taste had gone bitter.
August 21/08 Update
A total of ten pounds are off as of today. Ten pounds, fifty days.
That works out to one pound every 5 days. A fifth of a pound per day. Sixteen ounces in a pound. Three point two ounces per day. Not a lot of effort. Actually, less effort than I should have been making probably. Most of that was in the first week however, so... there will be a slower rate. But it barely matters. I've got the rest of my life, so I'm not especially worried how slow it goes.
What I really am struck by is how I have "learned" not to care about eating so much/as much, by writing each item down. I'm eating more vegetables (as cream soup) and liking them more. As long as I rotate the protein so it's not the same two days in a row, I'm cool with that too. I've had a dish or ice cream and a slice of that fudge sold at the local fair (and enjoyed them). They did not seem to slow the process appreciably. My metabolism must therefore be improving a bit. These food indiscretions seemed not to awaken any sleeping appetite dragons.
Sept 12/08 Update
Down two and a half more pounds. I'm sticking with the flesh- 1 or 2% milk - veg- and/or - fruit-smoothie diet quite easily. As long as weight keeps peeling off, I don't care how long it takes, really. I'm not tired of the food and I'm not hungry. It's very paleolithic + dairy, except that I have a good blender and access to food shops, unlike my human primate ancestors. The big change is the food diary idea. It's a really good tool - seems to be precisely what I needed for getting out of the nonconscious maze.
October 4/08
Down by 15 pounds as of today. Have been at this weight before but never so mindfully, never by calculatedly descending the metaphoric mountain, usually just by falling off it somewhere at some point, and bouncing back up. The food diary helps a lot. I do not skimp on portions. I merely eat one meal a day (involving fish, fowl or meat), and a snack (fruit smoothie) for dinner. Yes, it's slow. I realize that. But I also am not especially willing to resort to (artificially added) exercise yet. I walk everywhere (total about 40 minutes/day), physically carrying everything I need to move from A to B, and am actively moving about at work and using upper body strength all day. I think it's enough. I'm trying to learn to eat less. That's what this is really about. As Harriet Hall says in her review of Michael Pollan's book, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto,
Eat a variety of food. Not too much. Mostly plants.I will start to shift to mostly plants a bit later perhaps. Pollan suggests mostly leaves, not seeds. I suppose by being a fructi-carnivore, I'm not eating properly. But I do feel satisfied for now, and so far this is working for me.
November 22/08
Down by 20 lbs. from start in June. Feel better. Definitely.
I've noticed I always gain a pound or so for a few days after socializing. I attribute this to having stress - I'm an introvert and socializing is always (no matter if I enjoyed myself or not) stressful. And I do not indulge calorically when I socialize, so I suspect it's from my cortisol level having gone up a little, for a little while.
Saturday, July 05, 2008
Car-free at last
In reference to Divorcing the car:
Five minutes ago I walked inside $1800 richer (in twenties bound into 4 lots with rubber bands, in my packet, a thick wad to take to the bank later when it opens), and way more than just a ton lighter.
My car has just been affectionately transferred to a new owner, and all I had to officially keep were the plates. Oh, and the little bag of trash I filled from inside glove box and drink console. I can put the remote for the garage door away now. [big smile]I don't need it anymore[/big smile].
I feel good, really pleased with how relatively effortless this transition was.
Five minutes ago I walked inside $1800 richer (in twenties bound into 4 lots with rubber bands, in my packet, a thick wad to take to the bank later when it opens), and way more than just a ton lighter.
My car has just been affectionately transferred to a new owner, and all I had to officially keep were the plates. Oh, and the little bag of trash I filled from inside glove box and drink console. I can put the remote for the garage door away now. [big smile]I don't need it anymore[/big smile].
I feel good, really pleased with how relatively effortless this transition was.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Divorcing the car
Over a lifetime I've had a changing relationship to car ownership. When I was a teen I desperately wanted to learn how to drive, as I'm sure all teens still do. But it was the early 60's, the Canadian prairies, and I was a girl in a farm family which had yet to become egalitarian in how it treated its son (my brother) and me (the oldest but a mere female). My mother did not acquire a driver's license until well into her thirties.
A memory snippet from around the age of ten: I remember her practicing with the family car (a powder-blue 2-door '53 Ford Meteor), steering it carefully around the yard with her glasses (cat's eye shape, framed in reddish brown across the top, little sparkles in the corners) perched on her nose, looking very focused, very aware of her responsibility for the control of hundreds of horse power. She thought there was no need for me to learn to drive or get a license. My brother however was encouraged to get a license and a car as soon as possible. Not fair.
At the age of twenty five, long after graduating from physiotherapy school and feeling very definitely like an adult, I took driving lessons. At age 28 I bought my first beater, a green '74 Chevy Nova. My anger at my mother's mean sexism finally could abate. I felt like I had the world by its tail. Wheels at last. Driving victory was mine.
I loved driving. Took long trips. Explored. A couple Toyotas after that, a Ford hatchback, and this last car (which I will say goodbye to tomorrow), an Olds, the one and only car I've ever had that had air conditioning. All have been second hand.
It is thirty years later and the honeymoon is long over. I'm fed up with owning a car. My car sat idle, mostly, for the past year, as I learned and practiced how to be carless again. This decision to finally let go was not taken in haste - I remember vividly how much I used to love being a car owner/operator, how much I once associated it with independence - but... the thrill is definitely gone.
I'm tired of getting the car fixed, putting in gas, washing it, checking the tires.. all the stuff one does with a car. Actively loving and caring for it. I'm tired of paying for insurance on a big hunk of metal that just mostly sits there. And I'm really annoyed that the battery died because of letting it sit and not burning up gas. Thanks a bunch. Here I was being good to the planet and the battery dies from not being used. Time to kiss car ownership goodbye.
I'm looking forward to joining a car co-op - I'll be able to drive when and if I need to, but I won't have any responsibility for upkeep. I'll save a small fortune in insurance. Nothing will be in my parking spot but empty space. Decluttered.
With the money I get for the car I will be able to afford a new laptop, something I'll really get a lot more use from. The deal happens tomorrow, for cash. By Sunday evening I'll be carless and will feel much less encumbered by life.
Monday Jun 30:
Well, I'm still a car owner today... "the best laid schemes 'o mice and (wo)men gang aft agley" and all that. The car was inspected by the prospective new owner this morning (instead of yesterday) and he likes it. But he wants to bring cash (fine by me), and can't until Saturday July 5. Our new time is 8AM Saturday morning. I'm still very much looking forward to being a carless person.
A memory snippet from around the age of ten: I remember her practicing with the family car (a powder-blue 2-door '53 Ford Meteor), steering it carefully around the yard with her glasses (cat's eye shape, framed in reddish brown across the top, little sparkles in the corners) perched on her nose, looking very focused, very aware of her responsibility for the control of hundreds of horse power. She thought there was no need for me to learn to drive or get a license. My brother however was encouraged to get a license and a car as soon as possible. Not fair.
At the age of twenty five, long after graduating from physiotherapy school and feeling very definitely like an adult, I took driving lessons. At age 28 I bought my first beater, a green '74 Chevy Nova. My anger at my mother's mean sexism finally could abate. I felt like I had the world by its tail. Wheels at last. Driving victory was mine.
I loved driving. Took long trips. Explored. A couple Toyotas after that, a Ford hatchback, and this last car (which I will say goodbye to tomorrow), an Olds, the one and only car I've ever had that had air conditioning. All have been second hand.
It is thirty years later and the honeymoon is long over. I'm fed up with owning a car. My car sat idle, mostly, for the past year, as I learned and practiced how to be carless again. This decision to finally let go was not taken in haste - I remember vividly how much I used to love being a car owner/operator, how much I once associated it with independence - but... the thrill is definitely gone.
I'm tired of getting the car fixed, putting in gas, washing it, checking the tires.. all the stuff one does with a car. Actively loving and caring for it. I'm tired of paying for insurance on a big hunk of metal that just mostly sits there. And I'm really annoyed that the battery died because of letting it sit and not burning up gas. Thanks a bunch. Here I was being good to the planet and the battery dies from not being used. Time to kiss car ownership goodbye.
I'm looking forward to joining a car co-op - I'll be able to drive when and if I need to, but I won't have any responsibility for upkeep. I'll save a small fortune in insurance. Nothing will be in my parking spot but empty space. Decluttered.
With the money I get for the car I will be able to afford a new laptop, something I'll really get a lot more use from. The deal happens tomorrow, for cash. By Sunday evening I'll be carless and will feel much less encumbered by life.
Monday Jun 30:
Well, I'm still a car owner today... "the best laid schemes 'o mice and (wo)men gang aft agley" and all that. The car was inspected by the prospective new owner this morning (instead of yesterday) and he likes it. But he wants to bring cash (fine by me), and can't until Saturday July 5. Our new time is 8AM Saturday morning. I'm still very much looking forward to being a carless person.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
New blog - Eric Matheson PT: Feel Better, Move Well
The PT blogosphere is growing all the time. Eric Matheson has just launched a new blog called Live Better, Move well (and a new website, Matheson Physiotherapy. If you live in Nanaimo and need some help, Eric is your guy.)
Eric's latest blogpost is entitled Itch, and I must confess I read his post on SomaSimple and got the idea for my own blogpost, Itchy and Scratchy from it.
I like the line he drew out:
So true - for pain also.
Eric, I like your post better than mine.
Eric's latest blogpost is entitled Itch, and I must confess I read his post on SomaSimple and got the idea for my own blogpost, Itchy and Scratchy from it.
I like the line he drew out:
"This understanding of sensation points to an entire new array of potential treatments - based not on drugs or surgery but, instead, on the careful manipulation of our perceptions."
So true - for pain also.
Eric, I like your post better than mine.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Itchy and Scratchy
The New York Times has a great article by Atul Gawande about itch, and how sensors can go wrong. It's not the same as persistent pain, but it sounds awfully similar in behavior. Here is a link to The Itch. Here is a link to an audio interview about it.
Here is Jonah Lehrer's blogpost about it in his Frontal Cortex blog.
Here is a link to Atul Gawande's website.
Here is Jonah Lehrer's blogpost about it in his Frontal Cortex blog.
Here is a link to Atul Gawande's website.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Alberta woman with chiropractic stroke sues bigtime
A class action lawsuit has been filed against chiropractic in Alberta. A woman was turned into a quadriplegic by a chiropractor.
More of these cases are coming to light all the time. Rather than writhing in shame the way a profession should if lives are ruined at constant spaced intervals by its own "rock star" type of human primate social grooming, chiropractic shrugs and moves on, lets the individual chiropractor take the hit and acts like it's not the profession's fault.
This is an unconscionable attitude to take. I've always thought so and I always will.
In this case, (as I understand it) the woman and her husband are hoping to take the profession itself, and the provincial government which subsidizes it to court instead.
Nobody "needs" this kind of high-neck manipulative intervention on a regular basis to maintain their "health." Never let ANYONE tell you otherwise, no matter how charming they seem. It's a lie. It's a crock. Don't let anyone twist your neck for any reason. It's dangerous.
Watch the video, Kinsinger Report on Chiropractic.
Here is more information:
1. Chirotalk thread on the topic (Chirotalk is a board run by sane ex-chiropractors which means it's anti-chiropractic)
2. Old blog post, How I really feel about chiro
3. Please sign this petition against neck manipulation. Seriously, folks, this is a malevolent and thoroughly unnecessary human behavior that should be extinguished completely. Analysis of all the hidden symbolic dominance-submission ritual content it contains can wait until after it's been de-legalized.
4. Paralyzed woman sues chiropractic for half billion
5. Alberta woman launches massive chiropractic lawsuit
6. Sandy Nette's website
7. Action for Victims of Chiropractic (UK)
8. Video (short) Is a Headache Worth Dying For?
9. Chiropractic Lawsuit, blogpost by Steven Novella at Neurologica Blog
10. Adverse effects of spinal manipulation: a systematic review (JRSM 2007)
11. A Deadly Twist (story of another survivor of chiropractic stroke)
12. Chiropractic and Stroke (blogpost by Harriet Hall, MD and skeptic)
13. Another survivor, Graham Maynard's site
14. Stroke after chiropractic (CNN)(short video of a news clip)
15. Fact sheet on the class action (7-page pdf)
16. Doctor Who? Deception by chiropractors, by David Colquhoun
17. Chiropractors resort to legal intimidation, by David Colquhoun
Here are videos from the Nette couple's website, sandynette.com:
1. Sandy Nette's Story (about 8 minutes. Sandy speaks through a message board)
2. David Nette's Story: Part 1 (about 10 minutes. David talks about what happened at the hospital initially.)
3. David Nette's story: Part II (about 10 minutes. David talks about how he adjusted to the new situation he found himself in with his wife.)
4. David Nette's story: Part III (about 9 minutes. David talks of their shared resolve to prevent this ever happening to any other person, by launching the class action lawsuit.)
These videos are very revealing, very, very real and raw. They are a must-see.
........................................
June 20/08:
Since I put this blogpost up I've received a couple comments from one or two readers, both named "anonymous." I did not allow their comments to appear. They are glaringly pro-neck-manipulation, and I think the pro-neck-manipulators have already had far too much leeway in the realm of swaying public opinion to give them any sort of platform, however buried, obscure and humble this blog may be.
It's because of:
1. chiro training in a rationalized (as opposed to rational), deliberately propagated, bizarre belief system, combined with
2. a cultivated and honed persuasive attitude,
3. which appears aimed at propagating reckless enactment of a type of human physical social grooming (high-neck-manipulation) which is irrelevant and unnecessary in the first place,
4. against all common sense AND scientific investigation,
5. for the sole purpose of making $,
... that this woman became tetraplegic.
I have too much respect for the human nervous system to ever condone manipulation of its high-neck housing; therefore, "anonymous," I consider my prevention of your promotion of it on my blog, a positive choice - an action (however tiny) against letting myself and this blog be a vector for further perpetuation of your particular memeplex. And I happen to think it's an accumulation of tiny actions that count in life.
July 6/08:
Back in with this blog thread from Science-Based Medicine on this case.
July 17/'08
Back in with another Science-Based Medicine blog thread which deconstructs a chiro article which suggests patient visits to chiros and patient visits to medicos result in the same numbers of strokes overall.
Sept.28/08
Calgary Herald article by John William Kinsinger MD, Jun 21/08: Cracking necks destroys lives
Nov.16/08
Last night CTV's news program, W-FIVE, examined Sandy Nette's lawsuit. The program provides a glimpse into her life - it looks like she is able to use her left hand a little bit now. The viewer is introduced to a few of the others (people who had strokes shortly after chiro manipulation, some of whom recovered and others who didn't) who also are part of the class action suit.
The clip from W-FIVE
Jan.6/09
SPARC : Stroke Prevention & Atherosclerosis Research Center
Strokes From Neck Injury
Blogpost on bilateral internal carotid artery dissection from chiropractic neck manipulation.
Jan.7/09
Paciaroni M, Bogousslavsky J; Cerebrovascular Complications of Neck Manipulation.
European Neurology 2009;61:112-118 DOI: 10.1159/000180314
(If that link doesn't work, go here and click on full text or pdf.)
Feb 10/09
Harriet Hall, Chiropractic’s Pathetic Response to Stroke Concerns
August 4/09
Beware the Spinal Trap Simon Singh
“We are more possible than you can powerfully imagine” Ben Goldacre, Bad Science blog
More of these cases are coming to light all the time. Rather than writhing in shame the way a profession should if lives are ruined at constant spaced intervals by its own "rock star" type of human primate social grooming, chiropractic shrugs and moves on, lets the individual chiropractor take the hit and acts like it's not the profession's fault.
This is an unconscionable attitude to take. I've always thought so and I always will.
In this case, (as I understand it) the woman and her husband are hoping to take the profession itself, and the provincial government which subsidizes it to court instead.
Nobody "needs" this kind of high-neck manipulative intervention on a regular basis to maintain their "health." Never let ANYONE tell you otherwise, no matter how charming they seem. It's a lie. It's a crock. Don't let anyone twist your neck for any reason. It's dangerous.
Watch the video, Kinsinger Report on Chiropractic.
Here is more information:
1. Chirotalk thread on the topic (Chirotalk is a board run by sane ex-chiropractors which means it's anti-chiropractic)
2. Old blog post, How I really feel about chiro
3. Please sign this petition against neck manipulation. Seriously, folks, this is a malevolent and thoroughly unnecessary human behavior that should be extinguished completely. Analysis of all the hidden symbolic dominance-submission ritual content it contains can wait until after it's been de-legalized.
4. Paralyzed woman sues chiropractic for half billion
5. Alberta woman launches massive chiropractic lawsuit
6. Sandy Nette's website
7. Action for Victims of Chiropractic (UK)
8. Video (short) Is a Headache Worth Dying For?
9. Chiropractic Lawsuit, blogpost by Steven Novella at Neurologica Blog
10. Adverse effects of spinal manipulation: a systematic review (JRSM 2007)
11. A Deadly Twist (story of another survivor of chiropractic stroke)
12. Chiropractic and Stroke (blogpost by Harriet Hall, MD and skeptic)
13. Another survivor, Graham Maynard's site
14. Stroke after chiropractic (CNN)(short video of a news clip)
15. Fact sheet on the class action (7-page pdf)
16. Doctor Who? Deception by chiropractors, by David Colquhoun
17. Chiropractors resort to legal intimidation, by David Colquhoun
Here are videos from the Nette couple's website, sandynette.com:
1. Sandy Nette's Story (about 8 minutes. Sandy speaks through a message board)
2. David Nette's Story: Part 1 (about 10 minutes. David talks about what happened at the hospital initially.)
3. David Nette's story: Part II (about 10 minutes. David talks about how he adjusted to the new situation he found himself in with his wife.)
4. David Nette's story: Part III (about 9 minutes. David talks of their shared resolve to prevent this ever happening to any other person, by launching the class action lawsuit.)
These videos are very revealing, very, very real and raw. They are a must-see.
........................................
June 20/08:
Since I put this blogpost up I've received a couple comments from one or two readers, both named "anonymous." I did not allow their comments to appear. They are glaringly pro-neck-manipulation, and I think the pro-neck-manipulators have already had far too much leeway in the realm of swaying public opinion to give them any sort of platform, however buried, obscure and humble this blog may be.
It's because of:
1. chiro training in a rationalized (as opposed to rational), deliberately propagated, bizarre belief system, combined with
2. a cultivated and honed persuasive attitude,
3. which appears aimed at propagating reckless enactment of a type of human physical social grooming (high-neck-manipulation) which is irrelevant and unnecessary in the first place,
4. against all common sense AND scientific investigation,
5. for the sole purpose of making $,
... that this woman became tetraplegic.
I have too much respect for the human nervous system to ever condone manipulation of its high-neck housing; therefore, "anonymous," I consider my prevention of your promotion of it on my blog, a positive choice - an action (however tiny) against letting myself and this blog be a vector for further perpetuation of your particular memeplex. And I happen to think it's an accumulation of tiny actions that count in life.
July 6/08:
Back in with this blog thread from Science-Based Medicine on this case.
July 17/'08
Back in with another Science-Based Medicine blog thread which deconstructs a chiro article which suggests patient visits to chiros and patient visits to medicos result in the same numbers of strokes overall.
Sept.28/08
Calgary Herald article by John William Kinsinger MD, Jun 21/08: Cracking necks destroys lives
Nov.16/08
Last night CTV's news program, W-FIVE, examined Sandy Nette's lawsuit. The program provides a glimpse into her life - it looks like she is able to use her left hand a little bit now. The viewer is introduced to a few of the others (people who had strokes shortly after chiro manipulation, some of whom recovered and others who didn't) who also are part of the class action suit.
The clip from W-FIVE
Jan.6/09
SPARC : Stroke Prevention & Atherosclerosis Research Center
Strokes From Neck Injury
Blogpost on bilateral internal carotid artery dissection from chiropractic neck manipulation.
Jan.7/09
Paciaroni M, Bogousslavsky J; Cerebrovascular Complications of Neck Manipulation.
European Neurology 2009;61:112-118 DOI: 10.1159/000180314
(If that link doesn't work, go here and click on full text or pdf.)
Feb 10/09
Harriet Hall, Chiropractic’s Pathetic Response to Stroke Concerns
August 4/09
Beware the Spinal Trap Simon Singh
“We are more possible than you can powerfully imagine” Ben Goldacre, Bad Science blog
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Pain Science Division is not only official, but the news is now out
In reference to Canadian Physiotherapy Pain Science Division:
This morning I sat for a few minutes and read the "e-blast" from CPA, a report on our last National Congress, with this list of topics:
The item I bolded above states:
The excitement was particularly sharp the day of the vote, two weeks ago. Although decreased in amplitude this excitement has not diminished in frequency or endurance. I feel it the way I can feel my own blood coursing around, a feeling that's right there whenever I care to tune into it.
This morning I sat for a few minutes and read the "e-blast" from CPA, a report on our last National Congress, with this list of topics:
Tremendously Successful and Incredible Congress!
New CEO of CPA Officially Installed at Congress
New Pain Science Division Launched
Best and Brightest Recognized
Congress Receives Positive Media Coverage
Cost of Business Survey - Only 4 Weeks Left!
CPA Teleconference Program - Last 2 Sessions!
Obesity Survey - What Should Physical Therapists Do
Physiotherapy Foundation of Canada - New Board of Governors
The item I bolded above states:
New Pain Science Division Launched
It was a very successful Congress for those behind the three-year-old effort to have a Pain Sciences Division of CPA. The Board of Directors voted unanimously to approve the Division launch this past weekend. The purpose of the Pain Sciences Division is to disseminate current scientific information to Canadian physiotherapists, foster collaborative efforts between academic researchers and clinicians involved in pain management, and to promote physiotherapists as leaders in non-pharmacological pain management both nationally and internationally.
The first annual general meeting of the new Pain Science Division will be held in 2009. CPA members can join the new Division in the fall of 2008 when they renew membership.
Neil Pearson, a physiotherapist member from Penticton, BC, and a pain management specialist, is the new Chair of the Division. He says those who were behind the scenes did a lot of work to get it off the ground and are very excited now that it has been approved.
You may recall that a survey about creating a Pain Division was sent out to members in January, and there was overwhelming support for it.
For information on CPA Divisions, contact Tracy Blyth in the national office (email deleted)
The excitement was particularly sharp the day of the vote, two weeks ago. Although decreased in amplitude this excitement has not diminished in frequency or endurance. I feel it the way I can feel my own blood coursing around, a feeling that's right there whenever I care to tune into it.
That which sustains our humanantigravitysuits II
In reference to That which sustains our human antigravity suits:
This is hilarious. May the Farm be With You, a short video (under 10 minutes I think) with a loosely borrowed StarWars theme. Meet young Cuke and Obe Wan Canoli who fight the Forces of Darkness and rescue Princess Lettuce. You won't want to miss Ham Solo and ChewBrocoli.
This is hilarious. May the Farm be With You, a short video (under 10 minutes I think) with a loosely borrowed StarWars theme. Meet young Cuke and Obe Wan Canoli who fight the Forces of Darkness and rescue Princess Lettuce. You won't want to miss Ham Solo and ChewBrocoli.
Friday, June 06, 2008
That which sustains our human antigravity suits
In light of recent news reports about a global food shortage, I'd like to bring a series of you-tube videos here, highlighting the obnoxious corporate behavior of a certain company, Monsanto, that would do anything/is doing everything to take over anything/everything to do with global food supply, simply
a) to make itself money and power, and
b) because it can, and no one stops it.
(Behavior in this category is considered psychopathic when identified in ordinary mortals. See this film, The Corporation.)
Judge for yourself if any trails might lead to this company as a major contributor to this alleged food shortage.
Part I: Monsanto Patent for a Pig
Part II: Monsanto Patent for a Pig
Part III: Monsanto Patent for a Pig
Part IV: Monsanto Patent for a Pig
Part V: Monsanto Patent for a Pig
I grew up on a farm. As I watched this set of videos, my blood alternated between curdling and boiling. It's enough to turn a peaceful person into a political activist.
a) to make itself money and power, and
b) because it can, and no one stops it.
(Behavior in this category is considered psychopathic when identified in ordinary mortals. See this film, The Corporation.)
Judge for yourself if any trails might lead to this company as a major contributor to this alleged food shortage.
Part I: Monsanto Patent for a Pig
Part II: Monsanto Patent for a Pig
Part III: Monsanto Patent for a Pig
Part IV: Monsanto Patent for a Pig
Part V: Monsanto Patent for a Pig
I grew up on a farm. As I watched this set of videos, my blood alternated between curdling and boiling. It's enough to turn a peaceful person into a political activist.
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Canadian Physiotherapy Pain Science Division
We made it!
The group a few of us started in Canada in 2005 is now officially a division.
I've blogged about our little group, the CPPSG, a few times before, specifically Nov 2006, about a year after we were denied divisionhood after our first application.
We decided to keep going anyway, representing the profession as mirrored in a new way, a brand new way to most of the members that comprise it. We kept plugging along, developing a public profile. Neil Pearson engineered a magnificent set of webcasts on pain. We produced a series of newsletters of pretty good calibre, free to the public and to members of the profession worldwide. Each of our (total of six) members remained fully engaged in life, practice, and keeping our little flame lit.
It paid off, because at the end of May, just a week ago, the decision to include our group as the Pain Science Division of CPA was unanimously approved by all the official leaders in the Canadian branch of the profession.
Now the REALLY hard work starts. Yours truly will take on getting a new website together, which will be a major learning curve. Already there are lots of knocks on the door re: a series of teleconferences for fall. We're going to have our hands full, and we'll be keeping skype very busy.
We are aiming to improve the general overall level of knowledge in the profession regarding pain and how to treat it, when to not try to treat it manually, how to understand it, what to tell patients about it. There has never been an official physiotherapy division in Canada that coalesced around a ubiquitous symptom before, or around delving into what pain means. Instead, physiotherapy divisions have usually coalesced around a type of treatment or a specific patient population or a segment of human anatomy. We are the first division to have taken on tackling the essence of why physiotherapy exists in the first place - to help people overcome their pain and suffering, and try to help us all get better at it as a profession at the same time; understanding pain much better, by studying, learning and teaching a deeper model, also as a profession.
Wish us well.
One little drawback is that we won't be able to produce public newsletters anymore, for awhile. We have to become inner-focused, membership-focused, to get our work done within the Canadian branch of the profession. But we still have a commitment to the public and to physiotherapists worldwide, so I envision a day coming when we will start to produce publically available newsletters again.
The group a few of us started in Canada in 2005 is now officially a division.
I've blogged about our little group, the CPPSG, a few times before, specifically Nov 2006, about a year after we were denied divisionhood after our first application.
We decided to keep going anyway, representing the profession as mirrored in a new way, a brand new way to most of the members that comprise it. We kept plugging along, developing a public profile. Neil Pearson engineered a magnificent set of webcasts on pain. We produced a series of newsletters of pretty good calibre, free to the public and to members of the profession worldwide. Each of our (total of six) members remained fully engaged in life, practice, and keeping our little flame lit.
It paid off, because at the end of May, just a week ago, the decision to include our group as the Pain Science Division of CPA was unanimously approved by all the official leaders in the Canadian branch of the profession.
Now the REALLY hard work starts. Yours truly will take on getting a new website together, which will be a major learning curve. Already there are lots of knocks on the door re: a series of teleconferences for fall. We're going to have our hands full, and we'll be keeping skype very busy.
We are aiming to improve the general overall level of knowledge in the profession regarding pain and how to treat it, when to not try to treat it manually, how to understand it, what to tell patients about it. There has never been an official physiotherapy division in Canada that coalesced around a ubiquitous symptom before, or around delving into what pain means. Instead, physiotherapy divisions have usually coalesced around a type of treatment or a specific patient population or a segment of human anatomy. We are the first division to have taken on tackling the essence of why physiotherapy exists in the first place - to help people overcome their pain and suffering, and try to help us all get better at it as a profession at the same time; understanding pain much better, by studying, learning and teaching a deeper model, also as a profession.
Wish us well.
One little drawback is that we won't be able to produce public newsletters anymore, for awhile. We have to become inner-focused, membership-focused, to get our work done within the Canadian branch of the profession. But we still have a commitment to the public and to physiotherapists worldwide, so I envision a day coming when we will start to produce publically available newsletters again.
Sunday, June 01, 2008
"The pain is gone"
To me, an old-fashioned human primate social groomer who has always leaned harder toward the "therapist" side of treatment rather than the "physical", but who uses manual therapy as my main intervention, the advantage of deep science-based pain models like my favorite, the pain neuromatrix model, is that one can remain connected to one's patient (i.e., in good therapeutic contact) while explaining to them what their experience of pain, or in this case radical pain relief, might mean, regardless of how strange it may seem to me or may have seemed to them.
Here is a diagram, famous by now I'm sure, of Melzack's neuromatrix model. Click on it to make it bigger, so you can read the detail.
I often haul out this little diagram and sit down with a patient, because a lot of times, simple handling isn't quite enough - they need answers.
Case in point: last week I saw a young woman for the first time. She had been sent to me by her massage therapist (who I've known for years) who had worked with her for many months. Let's called the patient Rosie (not her real name).
Rosie had had a prior history of low back pain for ten years, for which she had gone to a chiropractor semi-regularly. She had worked as a fund raiser for some outfit, until about two years ago; while nursing a sprained ankle (and on crutches) she was in a car accident. Now she had back pain, sprained ankle, and neck and shoulder pain. She was unable to do her fundraising job anymore and had had to quit.
She had endured persistent neck and shoulder pain for two years in spite of seeing 36 of the finest manual therapists, both conventional and alternative, that Canada has to offer, in two different provinces, and having attended a modern pain clinic.
Then, to her surprise, during a meditation retreat in December last year, her pain vanished. All of it. Gone.
Emboldened, she began a vigorous yoga program, and inadvertently overstretched something. Bam. She had felt instant leg pain and a lot of weakness in the quads. This had persisted beyond the massage therapist's expertise, and was why she had been sent to see me.
I learned that after she had given up fundraising after the MVA, she had become involved in an experiential psych counselling training program, where they let her learn from a physical position of comfort, i.e., horizontal.
At visit #1 I had taken her history and provided some manual treatment, some very rudimentary pain education, and showed her a neural glide to do for the leg. She'd been happy for something to do - anything.
Yesterday at visit #2, I was ready with a neuromatrix diagram and was planning more in depth pain ed.
She arrived.
I asked how she was doing, and she said, "Fine, I'm all better."
(I was thinking,... huh? Did she go on another retreat?)
I asked how she had managed it this time, and she replied that the evening prior she had invited two shamans in to work on her, and they had, with burning herbs and drumming, and lots of touching. Before they left, they had pronounced her cured.
And sure enough, she felt that way. No pain.
She really did seem better, could walk better, move better, sit comfortably, breathe better.. Wow, I thought. "Good for you," I said.
"Well," she said, "I still feel some stuff..."
"..It looks like the stuff you might still feel doesn't bother you anymore - is that how it feels?" I asked.
"Yes," she replied, "I still feel some stuff but it doesn't bother me at all. I didn't need to come today, but it was too late to cancel my appointment."
We had an hour to spend, so I decided to stick with the plan; I asked her if she was interested in learning some things about pain. She said yes, so I invited her to go through the neuromatrix diagram with me. We sat down and I began explaining how the center circle with circular arrows represented the entire nervous system, how it was always processing even at night during sleep, how it was more of a verb, therefore, than it was a noun, how the diagram depicted the movement of this neuromatrix through time... how it had three main inputs on a spectrum that ranged from mental (cognitive evaluative) to physical (sensory-discriminative) to physiological (motivational-affective) and three main outputs, one of which just so happened to be pain, which could be influenced by any of the three inputs and which in turn influenced the three main inputs plus the other two outputs...
As we wandered through the diagram, I plugged in pieces of info she'd given me, she asked questions, we talked about treatment crucibles, safe containers and catalysts, symbolism and shamanism, meditation and movement forward. During her shamanic experience she had had a great deal of novel sensory-discriminative input, through all her senses, not just kinesthetically. I told her it sounded like it had been enough to get her neuromatrix off the square it had been stuck on. I pointed out, based on the prior meditation/pain relief experience, how much more her particular pain matrix seemed to respond to shift of cognitive input than it did to sensory-discriminative input. I mentioned that for most people, sensory-discriminative input of the physical kind was often sufficient, but that she'd burned through 37 manual practitioners of various kinds, including me, without much help, and she nodded..
She told me this was all making more sense to her now.. that she was someone who just didn't "get" things through only her body, the way most people can if some reasonable sensory-discriminative input of a novel sort is provided... Instead things had to make sense to her through her emotions/mind.
Apparently long ago some other PT had loaned her the book "Explain Pain", for a few months, and she had diligently made notes and some photocopies, but it had never quite sunk in or gelled. Now it was finally starting to make sense. She said, "I wish I could read that book again. It was really good, as I recall." I replied that she could buy her own copy if she wanted.
We discussed rehab, and I told her about some options, but that wherever she went, to stay in complete control, not let anyone rush her, and to use "graded exposure" and "pacing", concepts she already knew about.
I showed her two chapters from Pain: A Textbook for Therapists and she took copies. She said this would help her learn the neurobiology for when she herself would be a therapist, counselling pain patients. I mentioned she would be able to buy this book online as well - that buying these two books for herself would be much cheaper in the long run than seeing a bunch of expensive therapists for sensory-discriminative input that her particular brain seemed to not be wired to be able to easily accept. She agreed.
I worked with her leg for a little while, and unlike the first time, this time she remarked on feeling heat and movement in the thigh, and non-painful sensation connected to the leg in other parts of her body. I asked her if she could do an active straight leg raise after, and to her surprise, she could.
She left very pleased with all the progress she had made in one week, by her own efforts. I didn't need to see her again in my opinion; her downregulation was well and truly hooked back up. She's away to her next adventure, all in one piece again finally.
Way to go, Rosie. Way to go.
Here is a diagram, famous by now I'm sure, of Melzack's neuromatrix model. Click on it to make it bigger, so you can read the detail.
I often haul out this little diagram and sit down with a patient, because a lot of times, simple handling isn't quite enough - they need answers.
Case in point: last week I saw a young woman for the first time. She had been sent to me by her massage therapist (who I've known for years) who had worked with her for many months. Let's called the patient Rosie (not her real name).
Rosie had had a prior history of low back pain for ten years, for which she had gone to a chiropractor semi-regularly. She had worked as a fund raiser for some outfit, until about two years ago; while nursing a sprained ankle (and on crutches) she was in a car accident. Now she had back pain, sprained ankle, and neck and shoulder pain. She was unable to do her fundraising job anymore and had had to quit.
She had endured persistent neck and shoulder pain for two years in spite of seeing 36 of the finest manual therapists, both conventional and alternative, that Canada has to offer, in two different provinces, and having attended a modern pain clinic.
Then, to her surprise, during a meditation retreat in December last year, her pain vanished. All of it. Gone.
Emboldened, she began a vigorous yoga program, and inadvertently overstretched something. Bam. She had felt instant leg pain and a lot of weakness in the quads. This had persisted beyond the massage therapist's expertise, and was why she had been sent to see me.
I learned that after she had given up fundraising after the MVA, she had become involved in an experiential psych counselling training program, where they let her learn from a physical position of comfort, i.e., horizontal.
At visit #1 I had taken her history and provided some manual treatment, some very rudimentary pain education, and showed her a neural glide to do for the leg. She'd been happy for something to do - anything.
Yesterday at visit #2, I was ready with a neuromatrix diagram and was planning more in depth pain ed.
She arrived.
I asked how she was doing, and she said, "Fine, I'm all better."
(I was thinking,... huh? Did she go on another retreat?)
I asked how she had managed it this time, and she replied that the evening prior she had invited two shamans in to work on her, and they had, with burning herbs and drumming, and lots of touching. Before they left, they had pronounced her cured.
And sure enough, she felt that way. No pain.
She really did seem better, could walk better, move better, sit comfortably, breathe better.. Wow, I thought. "Good for you," I said.
"Well," she said, "I still feel some stuff..."
"..It looks like the stuff you might still feel doesn't bother you anymore - is that how it feels?" I asked.
"Yes," she replied, "I still feel some stuff but it doesn't bother me at all. I didn't need to come today, but it was too late to cancel my appointment."
We had an hour to spend, so I decided to stick with the plan; I asked her if she was interested in learning some things about pain. She said yes, so I invited her to go through the neuromatrix diagram with me. We sat down and I began explaining how the center circle with circular arrows represented the entire nervous system, how it was always processing even at night during sleep, how it was more of a verb, therefore, than it was a noun, how the diagram depicted the movement of this neuromatrix through time... how it had three main inputs on a spectrum that ranged from mental (cognitive evaluative) to physical (sensory-discriminative) to physiological (motivational-affective) and three main outputs, one of which just so happened to be pain, which could be influenced by any of the three inputs and which in turn influenced the three main inputs plus the other two outputs...
As we wandered through the diagram, I plugged in pieces of info she'd given me, she asked questions, we talked about treatment crucibles, safe containers and catalysts, symbolism and shamanism, meditation and movement forward. During her shamanic experience she had had a great deal of novel sensory-discriminative input, through all her senses, not just kinesthetically. I told her it sounded like it had been enough to get her neuromatrix off the square it had been stuck on. I pointed out, based on the prior meditation/pain relief experience, how much more her particular pain matrix seemed to respond to shift of cognitive input than it did to sensory-discriminative input. I mentioned that for most people, sensory-discriminative input of the physical kind was often sufficient, but that she'd burned through 37 manual practitioners of various kinds, including me, without much help, and she nodded..
She told me this was all making more sense to her now.. that she was someone who just didn't "get" things through only her body, the way most people can if some reasonable sensory-discriminative input of a novel sort is provided... Instead things had to make sense to her through her emotions/mind.
Apparently long ago some other PT had loaned her the book "Explain Pain", for a few months, and she had diligently made notes and some photocopies, but it had never quite sunk in or gelled. Now it was finally starting to make sense. She said, "I wish I could read that book again. It was really good, as I recall." I replied that she could buy her own copy if she wanted.
We discussed rehab, and I told her about some options, but that wherever she went, to stay in complete control, not let anyone rush her, and to use "graded exposure" and "pacing", concepts she already knew about.
I showed her two chapters from Pain: A Textbook for Therapists and she took copies. She said this would help her learn the neurobiology for when she herself would be a therapist, counselling pain patients. I mentioned she would be able to buy this book online as well - that buying these two books for herself would be much cheaper in the long run than seeing a bunch of expensive therapists for sensory-discriminative input that her particular brain seemed to not be wired to be able to easily accept. She agreed.
I worked with her leg for a little while, and unlike the first time, this time she remarked on feeling heat and movement in the thigh, and non-painful sensation connected to the leg in other parts of her body. I asked her if she could do an active straight leg raise after, and to her surprise, she could.
She left very pleased with all the progress she had made in one week, by her own efforts. I didn't need to see her again in my opinion; her downregulation was well and truly hooked back up. She's away to her next adventure, all in one piece again finally.
Way to go, Rosie. Way to go.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Still Meditating on Meditation
In reference to Growing a steering wheel for one's brain, and "Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction" - Jon Kabat-Zinn:
A recent article in the NY Times delves into the history of mindfulness meditation in therapy; check out Lotus therapy by Benedict Carey.
Thank you to Deric at Mindblog.
I just (a few days ago) obtained a copy of Kabat-Zinn's book, Full Catastrophe Living, and am reading random pages from it at bedtime. I usually do this with books ... expose my sleepy brain to them, see if something in there can grab my tired attention hard enough to make me want to read them cover to cover when I'm awake and can fairly engage. It's my own Sleepy Brain Interest Detection Screening Mechanism.
I'm grateful, actually, that at this stage of life I appear to be relatively catastrophe-free - there has been a very nice patch of smooth sailing for several years.
PS: I'm back in this post on May 29, to link to a just-released podcast from Ginger Campbell, in her books and ideas series, an interview with Delaney Dean on Mindfulness Meditation. Here are Campbell's show notes. Here is a link to the actual podcast. I am eager to listen to it.
A recent article in the NY Times delves into the history of mindfulness meditation in therapy; check out Lotus therapy by Benedict Carey.
Thank you to Deric at Mindblog.
I just (a few days ago) obtained a copy of Kabat-Zinn's book, Full Catastrophe Living, and am reading random pages from it at bedtime. I usually do this with books ... expose my sleepy brain to them, see if something in there can grab my tired attention hard enough to make me want to read them cover to cover when I'm awake and can fairly engage. It's my own Sleepy Brain Interest Detection Screening Mechanism.
I'm grateful, actually, that at this stage of life I appear to be relatively catastrophe-free - there has been a very nice patch of smooth sailing for several years.
PS: I'm back in this post on May 29, to link to a just-released podcast from Ginger Campbell, in her books and ideas series, an interview with Delaney Dean on Mindfulness Meditation. Here are Campbell's show notes. Here is a link to the actual podcast. I am eager to listen to it.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Chris Koch : Transcript of podcast with Ginger Campbell
I've just released this transcript on Dr. Campbell's BrainScience Podcast Forum. It is of her interview with Dr. Chris Koch, in Podcast #22, last fall.
Dr. Koch, together with Francis Crick, did research to find neural correlates of consciousness. Together they wrote The Quest for Consciousness: A Neurobiological Approach in 2004. Dr. Koch has continued this work subsequent to Dr. Crick's death.
The podcast transcript can be found here:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dg8sf6hf_33z9z29kfm
Dr. Koch, together with Francis Crick, did research to find neural correlates of consciousness. Together they wrote The Quest for Consciousness: A Neurobiological Approach in 2004. Dr. Koch has continued this work subsequent to Dr. Crick's death.
The podcast transcript can be found here:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dg8sf6hf_33z9z29kfm
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Growing a steering wheel for one's brain
Lately I've been crossing paths often with the idea of meditation.
My personal take on meditation is that on the one hand, I've always been somewhat reluctant to commit to anything that has any whiff of religiosity about it, while on the other, everything I ever have read about meditation suggested that at its fundamental level it is inherently secular, and biologically, neurologically friendly, which I find attractive.
I was not indoctrinated into any religion as a child, never attended church, usually headed off the other way from any setting where altars were part of the decor. I did succumb, however, to the Maharishi craze when it passed through where I was living in 1972. I took formal instruction and "sat" for awhile (a month or two at most). The meditation consisted of resting while sitting up and silently repeating a "word" given to me by the instructor in a formal private ceremony (which I stomached bravely), a word that meant nothing whatsoever in English, just a sound.
I can still remember the word ("ah-eem"), but don't recall noticing any change in myself at all. I dropped the whole process after awhile. I was/am easily bored I suppose, which is likely the whole "problem" I've had with meditation. Since then I have steered pretty clear of any committed sitting meditation on any sort of recurring quasi-permanent basis that involves being around other people.
Shortly after I became a meditation failure I learned about yoga from Ruth Richards, another physiotherapist in the hospital where I worked at the time. She was considerably older at 55 (I was a tender 22), was Danish, had been through WWII in Britain, was married to, then had become widowed by a UK man involved in the military. She seemed exotic, slightly tragic, wise, worldly, elegant and beautiful. She was a yoga practitioner and taught me the basics - how to breathe, what to feel for.
I began practicing yoga, on my own, from a book; every day for two years I spent at least an hour in my own body, focusing on every small sensation, breathing into, being with, and inhabiting every cubic centimeter of my entire body, feeling, registering, appreciating mounting improvements in my relationship with my body, my movement, my physicality.
I do not recall why I stopped. Bored again probably. But the feeling of knowing/ knowing how to feel and sense, physically, kinesthetically, has stayed ever since, right to this day.
It has helped me focus in on things that actually do matter to me, like getting the right "feel" in my work of manual treatment of pain. I can sit for several minutes without moving, breathing carefully, fully relaxed, even while exerting considerable physical force through my arms if need be, feeling with my hands, feeling for changes in someone's body tissues that tell me favorable change is happening in their nervous systems. I've done this all day long, for years. I've learned to get "me" out of the way, and let my own nervous system and that of my patient "communicate" in whatever way is required, to help that change along. Kinesthesis, whether it's auto- or applied, is so wordless it lends itself well to this deeper kind of attending. I practice this daily or nearly daily as part of my manual therapy practice, and try to teach it to the people I treat, so they can treat themselves.
After having become a manual therapist and learning to feel and control my own nervous system well enough to be able to use it to help other people with theirs, I came full circle back to learn there was meditation for dealing with pain, called Mindfulness Meditation. I wrote about this before, here.
Just a few days ago a new person joined BrainScience Podcast Forum, Delaney Dean, who is a meditation enthusiast and teacher, among other pursuits. She provided a MindHacks link (this one - thank you Vaughan), which contains a link to a great article on meditation, which was really supposed to be the point of this blog post...
Here is a link to the abstract of Attention regulation and monitoring in meditation by Lutz et al., and a link to the paper itself, a 7 page pdf.
I love the first sentence:
Indeed it can. Indeed it can. So much so that even "I", this rudderless construct of a self that has managed to cobble itself together over time and change, could be persuaded by my nonconscious processes to take it up, maybe for real this time... but I won't hold my breath. Which is part of the point of learning to meditate, or so I've heard..
My personal take on meditation is that on the one hand, I've always been somewhat reluctant to commit to anything that has any whiff of religiosity about it, while on the other, everything I ever have read about meditation suggested that at its fundamental level it is inherently secular, and biologically, neurologically friendly, which I find attractive.
I was not indoctrinated into any religion as a child, never attended church, usually headed off the other way from any setting where altars were part of the decor. I did succumb, however, to the Maharishi craze when it passed through where I was living in 1972. I took formal instruction and "sat" for awhile (a month or two at most). The meditation consisted of resting while sitting up and silently repeating a "word" given to me by the instructor in a formal private ceremony (which I stomached bravely), a word that meant nothing whatsoever in English, just a sound.
I can still remember the word ("ah-eem"), but don't recall noticing any change in myself at all. I dropped the whole process after awhile. I was/am easily bored I suppose, which is likely the whole "problem" I've had with meditation. Since then I have steered pretty clear of any committed sitting meditation on any sort of recurring quasi-permanent basis that involves being around other people.
Shortly after I became a meditation failure I learned about yoga from Ruth Richards, another physiotherapist in the hospital where I worked at the time. She was considerably older at 55 (I was a tender 22), was Danish, had been through WWII in Britain, was married to, then had become widowed by a UK man involved in the military. She seemed exotic, slightly tragic, wise, worldly, elegant and beautiful. She was a yoga practitioner and taught me the basics - how to breathe, what to feel for.
I began practicing yoga, on my own, from a book; every day for two years I spent at least an hour in my own body, focusing on every small sensation, breathing into, being with, and inhabiting every cubic centimeter of my entire body, feeling, registering, appreciating mounting improvements in my relationship with my body, my movement, my physicality.
I do not recall why I stopped. Bored again probably. But the feeling of knowing/ knowing how to feel and sense, physically, kinesthetically, has stayed ever since, right to this day.
It has helped me focus in on things that actually do matter to me, like getting the right "feel" in my work of manual treatment of pain. I can sit for several minutes without moving, breathing carefully, fully relaxed, even while exerting considerable physical force through my arms if need be, feeling with my hands, feeling for changes in someone's body tissues that tell me favorable change is happening in their nervous systems. I've done this all day long, for years. I've learned to get "me" out of the way, and let my own nervous system and that of my patient "communicate" in whatever way is required, to help that change along. Kinesthesis, whether it's auto- or applied, is so wordless it lends itself well to this deeper kind of attending. I practice this daily or nearly daily as part of my manual therapy practice, and try to teach it to the people I treat, so they can treat themselves.
After having become a manual therapist and learning to feel and control my own nervous system well enough to be able to use it to help other people with theirs, I came full circle back to learn there was meditation for dealing with pain, called Mindfulness Meditation. I wrote about this before, here.
Just a few days ago a new person joined BrainScience Podcast Forum, Delaney Dean, who is a meditation enthusiast and teacher, among other pursuits. She provided a MindHacks link (this one - thank you Vaughan), which contains a link to a great article on meditation, which was really supposed to be the point of this blog post...
Here is a link to the abstract of Attention regulation and monitoring in meditation by Lutz et al., and a link to the paper itself, a 7 page pdf.
I love the first sentence:
"Meditation can be conceptualized as a family of complex emotional and attentional regulatory training regimes developed for various ends, including the cultivation of well-being and emotional balance."
Indeed it can. Indeed it can. So much so that even "I", this rudderless construct of a self that has managed to cobble itself together over time and change, could be persuaded by my nonconscious processes to take it up, maybe for real this time... but I won't hold my breath. Which is part of the point of learning to meditate, or so I've heard..
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Is certainty a dopameme?
OK, first a disclaimer: dopameme is a word I made up, just because I thought it was necessary. I'm not entirely sure yet of everything it might mean..
Here is the definition.
This morning Harriet Hall at Science-Based Medicine reviewed a new book in her blog entry On Being Certain; the book is On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You're Not, by Robert Burton. In her review Hall says,
This is intriguing, and makes me want to expand the definition of "Dopameme" (the extent of which I am still uncertain) to include a new point:
Coincidentally there has been a very busy thread called Chiropractic and Stroke, also by Harriet Hall, with many comments (arguments from "certainty"), running concurrently.
Here is the definition.
Dopameme: Noun; Combination of the name of a neurotransmitter in the brain involved in feeling pleasure, "dopamine", and the term "meme" as coined by Richard Dawkins meaning a thought virus.
A "Dopameme" is a feel-good idea which:
1. forms part of a belief system (e.g., "new age" notions or pseudo/antiscience)
2. keeps people from learning to see the world rationally
3. stubbornly persists through generations, because the emotional comfort or pleasure it provides the person who harbours it ensures it will be replicated frequently in that individual's brain and easily passed on to others via social and conversational contact
4. gets recycled endlessly through books sold at spiritual and self-help bookstores, thus helping support the economy, thus further ensuring its continued survival
Dopamemes can be found in any walk of life but find particularly fertile ground in the helping professions, if fact are actively cultivated by many of them which appear to base their whole existence around farming them for profit.
This morning Harriet Hall at Science-Based Medicine reviewed a new book in her blog entry On Being Certain; the book is On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You're Not, by Robert Burton. In her review Hall says,
"A “feeling of knowing” probably had an evolutionary advantage. If we are certain, we can act on that certainty rather than hesitating like Hamlet. Certainty makes us feel good: it rewards learning, and it keeps us from wasting time thinking too much; but it impairs flexibility."
This is intriguing, and makes me want to expand the definition of "Dopameme" (the extent of which I am still uncertain) to include a new point:
5. like "certainty", provides emotional comfort by removing the cognitive dissonance of "not knowing."
Coincidentally there has been a very busy thread called Chiropractic and Stroke, also by Harriet Hall, with many comments (arguments from "certainty"), running concurrently.
Monday, May 05, 2008
How to sleep like a proper human primate
This morning a member of SomaSimple brought this article forward in a discussion we are having called Pain of Comfort:
Instinctive sleeping and resting postures: an anthropological and zoological approach to treatment of low back and joint pain by Michael Tetley, PT.
I'm bringing it here as a gift to all who wonder why there is so much insidious body pain in our nice, comfy, dry, temperature controlled, civilized lives. We are perhaps, as the article suggests, too far removed from our primate origin, unable to relax and sleep on a house floor, let alone a forest floor, or a wide tree branch surrounded by air and insects and potential danger.
I never had seen this article until now, and immediately fell in love with it, even though it contains a strong ortho-dominant perspective (as if there were nothing inside the body more important than joints) - otherwise it resonates with everything I think about self-efficacy. There are photos of natural sleeping positions that in my mind elongate and refresh neural tunnels everywhere. If the nerves alongside large joints are healthy, then so will the "joints" be. But this is a minor quibble overall.
The first sentence is;
Well, not quite true for me. I've been thinking about how to be a good human primate social groomer for quite a long time, Michael.
When people in pain ask me,"What should I do?" I start by teaching them how to get down on the floor and relax there. I tell them, the floor is flat and hard. When you lie down, you will immediately feel all your tightness easily. Once your brain can sense it, it can do something about it, lengthen out various tensions. When you get down on the floor, something's gotta give, and it's not gonna be the floor. The floor is the best biofeedback device there ever was, always cheap and always available. Make the floor your friend. And deep breathe with your abdomen to relax through anxiety and discomfort.
When they ask "What kind of mattress should I be on?" I say, in general, whatever gets you through the night, but the harder the better, so no waterbed.
Instinctive sleeping and resting postures: an anthropological and zoological approach to treatment of low back and joint pain by Michael Tetley, PT.
I'm bringing it here as a gift to all who wonder why there is so much insidious body pain in our nice, comfy, dry, temperature controlled, civilized lives. We are perhaps, as the article suggests, too far removed from our primate origin, unable to relax and sleep on a house floor, let alone a forest floor, or a wide tree branch surrounded by air and insects and potential danger.
I never had seen this article until now, and immediately fell in love with it, even though it contains a strong ortho-dominant perspective (as if there were nothing inside the body more important than joints) - otherwise it resonates with everything I think about self-efficacy. There are photos of natural sleeping positions that in my mind elongate and refresh neural tunnels everywhere. If the nerves alongside large joints are healthy, then so will the "joints" be. But this is a minor quibble overall.
The first sentence is;
If you are a medical professional and have been trained in a "civilised" country you probably know next to nothing about the primate Homo sapiens and how they survive in the wild.
Well, not quite true for me. I've been thinking about how to be a good human primate social groomer for quite a long time, Michael.
When people in pain ask me,"What should I do?" I start by teaching them how to get down on the floor and relax there. I tell them, the floor is flat and hard. When you lie down, you will immediately feel all your tightness easily. Once your brain can sense it, it can do something about it, lengthen out various tensions. When you get down on the floor, something's gotta give, and it's not gonna be the floor. The floor is the best biofeedback device there ever was, always cheap and always available. Make the floor your friend. And deep breathe with your abdomen to relax through anxiety and discomfort.
When they ask "What kind of mattress should I be on?" I say, in general, whatever gets you through the night, but the harder the better, so no waterbed.
Saturday, May 03, 2008
Chris Koch lectures on neural correlates of consciousness
I found a link on BrainBlog today (thank you, Anthony Risser at Brainblog), that takes a reader to a page containing a list of eighteen(!) lectures by Christopher Koch, each one about an hour long. What a bonanza of information. I've put a permanent link into the menu on the right.
Here are a few other humanantigravitysuit posts that refer to Chris Koch and his work.
Additional reading:
1. Scholarpedia article by Chris Koch on neural correlates of consciousness
2. Ginger Campbell's brainsciencepodcast #22, an interview with Chris Koch.
Here are a few other humanantigravitysuit posts that refer to Chris Koch and his work.
Additional reading:
1. Scholarpedia article by Chris Koch on neural correlates of consciousness
2. Ginger Campbell's brainsciencepodcast #22, an interview with Chris Koch.
Thursday, May 01, 2008
More insular matters
Deric Bownds at Mindblog, always a font of interesting and useful neuro information, posted about a meeting he was at where A.D. Craig, who researches pain and the insular cortex which helps to process it into conscious awareness, presented his ideas on the functional difference between the left and right insulas with regard to deep breathing. Check it out. Thumbs up.
My own insula seems to light up irresistibly whenever the word "insula" appears, and is drawn to examining whatever new scrap of info might have turned up. I've written about the insula before, here and here.
Here are some articles about the insula:
1. Craig AD. Pain mechanisms: Labeled lines versus convergence in central processing. Ann Rev Neurosci. 2003;26:130.
2. Craig AD. How do you feel? Interoception: the sense of the physiological condition of the body. Nature Rev Neurosci. 2002;3:655-66.
3. Henderson LA, Gandevia SC, Macefield VG. Somatotopic organization of the processing of muscle and cutaneous pain in the left and right insula cortex: A single-trial fMRI study. Pain. 2007;128:20-30.
4. Olausson H, Lamarre Y, Backlund H, Morin C, Wallin BG, Starck G, Ekholm S, Strigo I, Worsley K, Vallbo AB, Bushnell MC. Unmyelinated tactile afferents signal touch and project to insular cortex. Nature Neurosci. 2002;5:900–904.
5. Blakeslee S, A Small Part of the Brain, and its Profound Effects
My own insula seems to light up irresistibly whenever the word "insula" appears, and is drawn to examining whatever new scrap of info might have turned up. I've written about the insula before, here and here.
Here are some articles about the insula:
1. Craig AD. Pain mechanisms: Labeled lines versus convergence in central processing. Ann Rev Neurosci. 2003;26:130.
2. Craig AD. How do you feel? Interoception: the sense of the physiological condition of the body. Nature Rev Neurosci. 2002;3:655-66.
3. Henderson LA, Gandevia SC, Macefield VG. Somatotopic organization of the processing of muscle and cutaneous pain in the left and right insula cortex: A single-trial fMRI study. Pain. 2007;128:20-30.
4. Olausson H, Lamarre Y, Backlund H, Morin C, Wallin BG, Starck G, Ekholm S, Strigo I, Worsley K, Vallbo AB, Bushnell MC. Unmyelinated tactile afferents signal touch and project to insular cortex. Nature Neurosci. 2002;5:900–904.
5. Blakeslee S, A Small Part of the Brain, and its Profound Effects
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