Change Your Brain Every Day - The Common Causes of Chronic Pain

Episode Date: March 14, 2018

Chronic pain is a huge health issue for many people, but those who suffer are often unaware of what’s really causing it. In this episode of The Brain Warrior’s Way Podcast, Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen illuminate some of the more hidden causes, such as emotional trauma or inflammation, and then give treatment options.

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. Here we teach you how to win the fight for your brain to defeat anxiety, depression, memory loss, ADHD, and addictions. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we've transformed lives for three decades using brain spec imaging to better target treatment and natural ways to heal the brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com.

The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceutical products to support the health of your brain and body. For more information, visit brainmdhealth.com. Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. And stay tuned for a special code for a discount to Amen Clinics for a full evaluation, as well as any of our supplements at brainmdhealth.com. Welcome back. So today we're going to continue a little bit along the lines of what we talked about in the last one. We talked about social isolation and you mentioned something in our last chat about how our pro-inflammatory diets are causing a problem. They're causing

people to socially isolate. They're causing people to be sick. We know that they're causing people to be sick, but they're also causing chronic pain. And we also mentioned in the last podcast that chronic pain causes people to socially isolate. So I get a- Right, so it's sort of a vicious cycle. Right. And women are far more affected by this chronic pain issue. Because they have lower serotonin levels. Right. And there was a very big survey taken, over 2,400 women that experienced chronic pain. And what they found was most of them had experienced childhood trauma. So more than half.

And here's what they found. 44% had experienced emotional abuse, 35% bullying, 28% sexual abuse, 24% witnessed violence, 23% physical abuse, and 17% death of a parent. So there is a huge connection between emotional trauma and chronic pain. But what was really interesting is that more than 50% of those women refused to acknowledge that their chronic pain had anything to do with their childhood trauma. And part of that was because they did not want to be labeled a victim. And the other part of it was because they did not want anyone to think or tell them that it was all in their head. They were afraid that someone was to say it's all in your head. Well, it is kind of

in your head, but not in a bad way. So what does this remind you of? Are you trying to say it reminds you of me? What does it, don't you remember our first conversation? Why do all of these come back to me? What was our first conversation? January 1st, 2006. I am a bad you know what. I am so tough. You're sitting there psychoanalyzing me. I wasn't psychoanalyzing you. He was totally psychoanalyzing me. I was just analyzing you. Right. Same thing.

We're both psychos. You're psychoanalyzing me. You're sitting there telling me, like, you're sitting there going, well, don't you think there's a connection between this and your childhood? And I'm like, no. Having upper GIs from the time you were four and chronic pain and. Yeah and I'm sitting there like no I don't think it has anything to do with anything. And I'm like well what happened when you were four? I'm like oh dear lord I knew I shouldn't have gone out with a psychiatrist that's what I was telling

that's what I was saying to myself. So yeah so low back pain is the number one chronic pain. So, what happened when you were four? You mean when my uncle was murdered? Oh. Minor thing. Let's not go. This is a slippery slope. I mean, I feel like.

Right. But you know what we're talking about. Oh, I do. Is that emotional trauma. So what we see in the brain, but it's not just the brain. What we see in the brain is when people have been emotionally traumatized, they get this, we call it the diamond pattern where the emotional brain activates. And I had that.

And a part of that is an area called the insular cortex sort of like the word insulated it's in between your frontal lobes and your temporal lobes but it was it's activated in PTSD and that's actually where we feel pain so this is really important and this is one of the reasons that I, when we were first dating, I fell in love with your work because there was no way I was listening to a psychiatrist. Let's just face it. Like I almost canceled my first date with you. So let's just be honest here. I was no way going to listen to a psychiatrist. I basically thought you guys were all nuts. So, but when I, I see some truth to truth to that. So you wanted to scan me.

You had your own agenda for that, for seeing my naked brain. But I actually thought it was really interesting. Like this idea of brain scan. And I didn't want to fall in love with you if you were going to make my life a living hell. Right. Yeah, this is a little agenda. But I actually thought it was a really cool idea. And I thought what he did was so different.

But when I saw my scan and I saw that diamond pattern, I'm like, like there's actually a way to see trauma. I was like, whoa, that's super cool. That's when I believed you. That's when I actually started to believe you. And I'm like, okay, he's not your average just cuckoo dude that's just spewing, like psychoanalyzing me. Right. So when you see trauma, one of my first gifts to you was 10 sessions of EMDR, which is a specific psychological treatment for trauma. Right. Now we have to get back to chronic pain.

But I need to finish that because it's really important because the EMDR was super helpful. So I started doing the EMDR and first of all, that was another issue is that I actually was completely against the idea of therapy. So I started doing the EMDR and first of all, that was another issue is that I actually was completely against the idea of therapy. But when I started doing the EMDR, I loved it. And then I continued it for like two years. Why are you laughing at me? I continued it for like two years. Just because it's so easy. But I have to tell you, it was so helpful. So helpful helpful and it helps chronic pain so when someone tells you it's in your head don't take it wrong it actually is your emotional centers are all fired up

right which makes whatever pain you have worse right right it's legitimate so if you want to learn more about emdr um go to emdria.org, and you can learn all about it. It's a treatment I've studied. I'm a huge fan of it. And it can actually decrease chronic pain because it decreases the emotional charge that's going on in your brain. It was awesome. So interesting story for me is when I first started doing imaging, I was on call and a police officer, his name was Steve, tried to kill himself the night before.

And he had been in chronic pain. multiple accidents as a police officer and um he was just he's done with the pain and he tried to kill himself and when i scanned him his cingulate gyrus was freaking on fire so that's the area of the brain it's your gear shifter it lets you go from thought to thought move from idea to to idea, be flexible, go with the flow Journal of Psychiatry said that Prozac calmed down the cingulate gyrus. And so I put him on Prozac. I mean, today I'd probably put him on some nutrients that would increase serotonin in his brain. But if they don't work, I'll put him on Prozac or something like it. And he got so much better. I mean, it was just dramatic. Isn't that amazing?

And what he said is he said, I still hurt, but I don't think about it all the time. Right. So it was the obsessive thinking that really caused him to try to kill himself because he wanted to get away from it. Right. So first of all, let's point out him to try to kill himself because he wanted to get away from it. Right.

So, let's, first of all, let's like point out that the most common complaint for chronic pain is low back pain followed by migraines and then it sort of goes on from there. But let's talk about, because we know we've got an opioid epidemic in the country, we know some of the more typical ways that people try to treat chronic pain, which is with medicine. Let's talk about some alternatives. We talked about EMDR, which I think is freaking awesome. So if there's been any emotional trauma, EMDR is really important.

Hypnosis, incredibly powerful. And meditation, like just the best. And they actually have found mindfulness meditation when you actually, it's where you actually like slow down, you focus on breathing, you allow your thoughts to just sort of come in and you sweep them away with the broom and you don't judge them, but you increase your awareness of your body,

pay attention, sort of scan and notice where it's painful, breathe into that area. You sort of breathe into the area where there's pain. So what I do is I'll sort of breathe in light, breathe out pain. Breathe in light, breathe out pain. And do it very slowly, do a diaphragmatic breathing. So hypnosis, meditation, diaphragmatic breathing, prayer. The supplements that I really like for pain,

omega-3 fatty acids. Things that decrease inflammation. They decrease inflammation. Curcumins, because they decrease inflammation. We have a new product called Brain Curcumins because we just found the best source. Well, and you don't like curry, so. And I don't like curry. And SAMe. So the supplement SAMe, there's about, there are dozens of studies showing it helps decrease pain, especially osteoarthritis. And so it's better to take a holistic approach. The problem with opiates is they decrease it in the short run, but increase it in the long run. Yeah, and the problem with things like taking NSAIDs or like Advil long-term is they can damage your stomach lining. None of these things come without side effects. But there's also lots of other things you can check out, like acupuncture or, for me, chiropractor.

I go to my chiropractor for back pain. I love the chiropractor. I go to my chiropractor for back pain. I love the chiropractor. They do something called cupping, which I found to be extremely helpful. I have no idea why. And I have no idea why it works, but it just works. Because it increases blood flow. So it's awesome. And I know you're going to disagree with me on this. I don't agree. I know. And I know you're going to disagree because- I have no idea what you're going to say, but why not? Let's just start there. Because he is the yin to my yang. But because it's an emotional release for me, I just love going to karate.

But it's an emotional release. Yeah, but if you're damaging bones that are damaged... No, no, I have to adjust what I do, no question. But it feels really good. So if you need an emotional release, go to yoga or do something like that, but know your body, know your personality type. You know what you need to do? You need to get virtual reality glasses.

No, it's not the same. Where you're doing all of this in your mind. No, no, you need to be able to... But it's not damaging your verte No. That are already broken. They're not broken. What are they then? They're just sort of twisted. I have scoliosis.

Right, but didn't you say when you had the MRI that you actually had some vulnerabilities? I have vulnerabilities, yes. So I've adjusted what I do. I have adjusted. Well, we've learned that the act of doing it in your imagination is the same effect of actually doing it. You should just try it. No, I want to hit something. As long as it's not me, I guess we're fine.

When people took our Brain Warriors Way course that's available online, significant decreases in pain because they were decreasing the pro-inflammatory diets that they were doing. Plus they got all these other awesome ways of taking care of their body. Yeah. So much fun. Stay with us. Use the code podcast10 to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation at amenclinics.com or on our supplements at brainmdhealth.com. Thank you for listening to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. Go to iTunes and leave a review and you'll automatically be entered into a drawing to get a free signed copy of the Brain Warriors Way and the Brain Warriors Way cookbook we give away every month.