Chronic Pain/Fibromyalgia
More than 80% of medical visits today are related to chronic pain. This type of care has cost about $80 billion each year in the United States.
According to the International Association for the Study of Pain, “pain is unquestionably a sensation in a part or parts of the body but is always unpleasant and therefore also an emotional experience”.
Fox and Raichle (2007) indicate that long-term pain disrupts the balance of the “default mode network (DMN)”, producing a widespread impact on overall brain functions. These disruptions of the DMN are believed to be related to depression, anxiety, sleep disturbances, and faulty decision-making which plague chronic pain patients. The default mode network is a network of brain regions that are active when the individual is not focused on the outside world and the brain is at wakeful rest.
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Chronic pain may originate in the body via the brain and/or spinal cord. It can be difficult to treat therefore a more comprehensive approach is always recommended. However, we have witnessed the experience of pain linked to EEG, or brain waves. Balancing neuron activity through Neurofeedback has been successful in relieving intense pain sensations, acute pain, chronic pain, fibromyalgia pain, and even decreasing some types of medically related pain.
Resources:
http://nnrionline.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/neurofeedback-in-pain_ch016.pdf