From the 24th to 30th of July is the first National Pain Week. An initiative of Chronic Pain Australia, National Pain Week is not unlike Heart Week in May of each year where it provides a platform all over Australia to create awareness and shine a spotlight on the dilema of people living with persistent and debilitating pain.
The theme for National Pain Week is “Growing Hope For People In Pain”, and when we look back at some of the chronic pain case studies from the Lifestyle Pain Clinic where pain has been eliminated and function restored, there is good reason for hope.
The Lifestyle Therapies National Pain Week Event: Read more…
Fibromyalgia and Chronic Pain Case Study: Improved Function and Pain Control
SS presented to Lifestyle Therapies with a long history of fibromyalgia and chronic pain affecting the cervical, thoracic and lumbar spine.
Her pain was widespread, with symptoms radiating into both arms and both legs. She had previously tried various forms of treatment and reported that hands-on therapy often aggravated her symptoms.
This was clinically important. In patients with fibromyalgia and persistent widespread pain, manual treatment can sometimes be poorly tolerated when the nervous system is highly sensitised. The initial treatment approach therefore needed to be gentle, carefully monitored and guided by reassessment.
It’s true that many forms of magnetic therapy are questionable. However, the research shows that for magnetic therapy to work requires a high degree of specificity and just slapping on a bipolar magnet or wearing magnetic jewellery is not at the cutting edge of this promising area of treatment for chronic pain. So the question of does magnetic therapy work requires some big qualifications, such as what type of magnet (strength, size, bipolar, multipolar) and how is it used.
You have to look at the published research on magnetic therapy and speak to experienced health professionals who have extensive clinical experience using it on different types of conditions to answer this question. There are plenty of well meaning health professionals out there who are quick to judge but digging a little deeper, you quickly discover they have never experienced it, have little understanding of the science and rely on hear say.
Patient information is provided at the Lifestyle Pain Clinic
This is why Dianne Hermans, who has been a practicing physiotherapist for over 20 years, is an expert in this area. Dianne has treated thousand of cases using magnetic therapy over a ten year period and has presented at national and international conferences and trained hundreds of other health professionals. She has also recently completed a randomised controlled trial as part of a research masters at Griffith University looking at the effects of Quadrapolar magnets of osteoarthritis of the knee.
Quite an interesting film. A 60 min film over four parts on pain covering some interesting research into genetics and people who actually feel no pain and how understanding their genetics may play an important role in future treatments.
Part 4 shows a fascinating new treatment called transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) which involves emitting short magnetic field pulses through the brain to rewire very sensitive pain pathways.
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