pain clinic for help as I am desperate, I have serious problems with my back byt all he was focusing on was my well managed fibro and said that I could cure myself from fibro with my mind ??? I have never heard anything like this before and I am left wondering if he is right?or is he yet another Dr that doesn't understand the condition? I would appreciate anyone's feelings on this as I have been left feeling like it's all in my head .many thanks
Hi Girlracer - some pain clinics focus more on pain management, others more on biochemical aspects as in pills.... there's both kinds of docs and clinics as well as mixtures, and both aspects to any illness - mind and body.
People that come from the psychological point of view sometimes exaggerate the importance of the mind and believe a lot of illness is psychosomatic, which is especially easy to advocate if docs can't find anything. What is true is that too much stress and trauma in our lives may have contributed and may still be contributing towards our fibro, some studies say 20%, others up to 60% have had this in their lives. But there is no medical evidence for it to be a real cause.
But focusing on this can never sensibly be about a
cure. It's about management and improving quality of life. Theoretically once that's been said it might still well be possible to learn good mental attitudes from that person, probably more so than from someone who throws tons of pills at us. Especially if they start listening more and budging from this stark point of view. In practice they may be people who have no practical knowledge, know nothing themselves about strong pain and symptoms and cannot empathize well either.
So my test for this is to ask how they came to their opinion, what their proof, what the evidence is, and to see if they are relating to what I have been saying and what ideas they have. I've had a lot who couldn't relate, weren't listening or whose suggestions I found made pain management worse rather than better.
Best I think are people who either take us seriously and give us helpful support and tools for our specific problems and/or have the mindset of radical acceptance as in ACT (acceptance and commitment therapy), with various techniques like accepting pain, but changing our feelings towards it so that we suffer less and can endure it better, and still be happy etc.
In your case you're saying your fibro is well-managed but you have back problems, and he wasn't listening to that offering you tools, he was praps offering perspective of hope of cure which is futile especially as regards your back problems. Better than this perspective would have been to offer a variety of tools you can't resist. One problem people in clinics have is they can't really get to know their clients, cos it's too short term. So they can only catalyze / provoke thoughts.
Praps all this can lead you to look for better coping strategies and "prove him wrong".