Exploring Chronic Pain: Bridging Western Medicine and Eastern Healing Practices

Chronic pain is a pervasive issue affecting millions and can significantly alter one's quality of life. This episode addresses the multifaceted nature of chronic pain, the various types and their implications, the connection between childhood traumas and chronic pain, and the role of energy bodies and the chakra system in understanding pain.

• Discussion on the definition of chronic pain
• Overview of the prevalence and impact of chronic pain
• Exploration of different types of pain: somatic, visceral, referred, neuropathic, generalized, and rheumatic
• Connection between adverse childhood experiences and chronic pain
• Introduction to the chakra system and its relationship to chronic pain
• Insight into how energy blockages can manifest as chronic pain
• Importance of combining traditional and holistic approaches to pain management

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Chapters

• 0:58 Chronic Pain
• 15:01 Chronic Pain and Chakras

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:58

Hello and thank you so much for joining me for the latest Art of Healing podcast For the month of January. We are going to be discussing chronic pain and this is going to be over a series of three podcasts. So for this first one, I'm going to introduce chronic pain what it is and we're going to do a quick overview of chronic pain in the energy body. Next week, if you'll join me, I'll have a special guest, dr Indejeka Olatunde, who is going to discuss reflexology, touchology and chronic pain. Then we're going to close the month with a meditative practice to help us make room for discomfort and pain. So please join me for the first of these episodes and make sure you sign up for my newsletter so I can let you know when the next recordings come out. And if you check your show notes, I got a special treat. I've got a little free surprise for those of you who listen to the podcast. Some a nice little course the nine minute Reiki meditation. That is going to be free for those of you that tune in. Thank you so much For the next few minutes. I wanted to start our meeting out today with discussing the basics of chronic pain and if we haven't met, I'm Dr Charlize and I'm an internal medicine doctor, also practice Reiki, so we're going to cover the basics of pain from both a Western and Eastern approach, so we're going to try to catch all of it during this presentation. I've done several podcast episodes that go in depth in both directions. As far as pain in general, the chakra system, I was somewhat trying to anticipate what Dr Olatundo is going to be discussing, so we're going to cover both those during today's episode and, again, don't feel a need to take a bunch of notes or anything, because this will all go live on the podcast. In addition to that, on my website healingartshealthandwellnesscom, there will be both a written form of this and the podcast, and so that'll be going live either in one or two weeks.

Speaker 1: 3:25

Chronic pain is something that is really very common and the estimates are that up to any in at any point in time, 20 of the world's population one in 10 adults, which is probably even low, that's a low estimate are suffering from chronic pain of some kind in their body. Chronic pain is pain that has been present for at least six months or longer, and that definition is even questionable because really any pain where the body is speaking to us and the cause that, whatever cause, the pain is gone is already becoming a pathology. But in medicine, whenever I'm evaluating a patient, if they are discussing a pain that's been there for six months, it's getting into the chronic pain rather than acute pain scenario, and pain is subjective. The troubling thing with pain when we can see someone's pain, it's easier for us to empathize. Of course, if we see someone that suffered from burns or we see someone that's been in a car accident, we as humans are wired very easily that if we can see what's hurting we can empathize and sympathize with the person. But with chronic pain, more than likely there's not going to be a visible reminder. And this is where some of the disconnect comes, particularly in the practice of medicine, where individuals are left to have pain and suffer in it, because it is hard for doctors to empathize with what they're talking about because there might not be any physical marks or reminders.

Speaker 1: 4:56

But the reason why we need to be aware of chronic pain, we need to discuss what can happen in chronic pain, is that it changes us. It changes our minds, it changes our body, it impacts the spirit. It really does a lot of damage long-term, including worsening the memory, increasing the risk of depression or making depression worse, which is a vicious cycle, because as depression gets worse the pain gets worse. Insomnia, which creates another vicious cycle. When you're hurting and it disrupts you getting to sleep, then the more that you don't sleep, the more likely you are to suffer pain. When our bodies are in chronic pain, stress hormones and we've I know some of us who just meet for the first time, but we've discussed stress hormones a lot Cortisol, cortisone, some of those adrenals go way up and they impact the body in all kinds of awful ways, driving up the blood sugars, making the brain more receptive to pain, more sensitive to pain. And then one of the more devastating things is chronic pain leading to heart disease, increasing the risk of a heart attack or stroke. So it's not fun to talk about, particularly after the holidays.

Speaker 1: 6:13

But as I first met Dr Olatunde and things were lining up, something that occurred to me for this talk was that many of you may have well, may be suffering from chronic pain or may have been around family members that have chronic pain and they may not have told you. So you may notice that they're changing over the years. You may notice that they look or seem different from last Christmas or the Christmas before that that maybe their shoulders are hunched and not breathing as well. They don't have the sparkle and, depending on what they've been through particularly if they're over the age of 50 or 60, it might be that chronic pain that they don't feel should be discussed, or they may feel like a weakness and they're not being strong enough, could be at the root of what's causing them to change. So, once again, I'm Dr Charlize. If you don't know me, if you just Google at Dr Charlize, it should take you somewhere.

Speaker 1: 7:12

To me, I'm internal medicine by training, and then I practice Reiki as well. So I have a Reiki studio where I see clients, and then my favorite way to stay in touch with folks is my email, and then, of course, with my podcast, the Art of Healing, and then I also have a blog, and, once again, nothing you all need to do, because you'll get all of this in your email a little bit later. So I wanted to cover the general types of chronic pain, and this might be the way that a physician would see it. I know Dr Olatun is going to discuss it from a different approach, which I'm so excited about, but when people go into the doctor with pain, which it's as long as I've been in practice.

Speaker 1: 7:52

It's still fairly frightening that the number one reason that people present to a physician is pain and that pain ends up being one of the most poorly managed and the worst empathy. But when a person presents with pain, the way that the doctor is probably going to try to evaluate this is, of course when did it start? Do we know what caused it? If that's obvious, do we know what makes it better? Do we know what makes it worse? Do we know what makes it worse? Do we know if other symptoms occurred with the pain? We're trying to dig a little bit deeper and do that detective work and then, as far as how we might try to classify that pain, especially if we're needing to go after treatment or do more diagnostics or if we're trying to decide. This is a red flag type of pain. Red flag in that it's a warning sign of something very dangerous.

Speaker 1: 8:43

Somatic pain is pain that is going to be generated from the musculoskeletal system and that would be pain like osteoarthritis, that's, chronic damage and inflammation to a joint, like in a knee or a hip. Somatic pain a lot of times is more of an acute pain. So you stub your toe, that's somatic pain. Or you fell and landed on your knee and it's hurting that next several hours, that's somatic pain. Ours, that's somatic pain, but somatic pain from the body, the nerves that send the sense signals to the brain can be any part of the body, but we classify it as like somatic pain.

Speaker 1: 9:25

Visceral pain is pain that comes from an organ. So viscera means organ and visceral pain could be from the stomach, from the liver, the gallbladder that's a common one. So when someone's having their first or has several gallbladder attacks, that can cause pain in the right part of the abdomen up towards the chest. Visceral pain can come from the reproductive organs in women, the uterus or ovaries can be a source of pain during pregnancy or not during pregnancy, and it has to be explored. The lungs can hurt. Lungs can cause pain after an infection. A common cause of pain that can become chronic is called pleuritic pain, and that's when the lining of the lung is inflamed and it causes pain, possibly with breathing. So visceral pain is one that we typically really need to find out because unfortunately that can be a warning sign of something scary, or like something's not getting enough blood flow, like the heart. That's a visceral pain If it's not getting enough blood flow. That causes angina. Or if there's pain in the liver, could it be something like the gallbladder, or is there's bleeding there or a tumor? So visceral pain pretty much has to be determined. But visceral pain can become chronic. It can become a pain that stays and does not go away.

Speaker 1: 10:48

Referred pain is pain that is being caused from a pathology in one part of the body but we are sensing it in another part of the body. Sciatica is the one I could think of most commonly where a patient might come in and they are convinced their knee is injured. You just can't tell them that knee isn't hurt or something's wrong with it, because it just hurts no matter what they do. You examine the knee, it's normal, there's no swelling, it's functioning fine, they can put weight on it, fine, but it just hurts, hurts, hurts. And that's because that pain's not really in the knee at all. It's actually being felt in a nerve that comes from the lumbar spine. But when we start to dig a little deeper, it's coming from pain in the lumbar spine and it's maybe sciatica or lumbar radiculopathy. So the problem is in the spine but it's being felt somewhere else and that's because that nerve that travels down the leg is telling the brain pain's in the knee but it actually comes from the back.

Speaker 1: 11:56

Neuropathic pain is pain from a nerve. I think of it as, like nerves in the feet typically is where people will most commonly complain of it. Sometimes we'll know the cause very obviously so diabetics that sugar or glucose sets in the bloodstream all the time. It becomes toxic to the nerves and as a consequence can cause those to hurt and cause pain. Not unusual that an exam may be somewhat normal, other than losing sensation or not having full sensation for a fine touch in the toes or the feet. Exquisitely painful, especially when someone's trying to sleep at night. You can have neuropathic pain as well from shingles, which is an inflammation in the nerve around the chest or the belly or possibly the face, and that nerve can sometimes hurt after the rash is gone.

Speaker 1: 12:47

Generalized pain is pain. I classified it for our talk as pain in the entire body. It might be just from head to toe and it will fall in the realm of our conditions such as fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome. Pain that just seems to be coming from nowhere or from everywhere can occur acutely if we're getting sick with like flu or COVID, but for people with generalized pain very difficult because they don't have any one thing to pin it on and they can find trouble getting comfortable anywhere in their body. And then the last of those is rheumatic pain and that's pain from the immune system attacking maybe one or several parts of the body. So like rheumatoid arthritis, where the immune system attacks the connective tissue in the wrist and causes pain there. System attacks the connective tissue in the wrist and causes pain there.

Speaker 1: 13:40

This comes up quite a bit in my own patients and comes up quite a bit in the Art of Healing podcast community is that there is an unfortunate link between adverse childhood experiences and going on to experience chronic pain as an adult. So you've probably heard of those adverse childhood experiences and those are traumatic experiences in the childhood that we're discovering with scientific research, can rewire our brains and change our nervous system and change our hormonal system so that as adults, things that we maybe would have been able to recover from we don't recover from and we continue to carry that pain for the rest of our lives. And then, as we go deeper which we're about to as far as our subtle bodies and our energy bodies causes changes there where it can be so frustrating because physically there just is nothing that looks wrong. The pain's in the subtle body. There's nothing that looks wrong. The pain's in the subtle body, but it's very real and very debilitating, and this impacts quality of life terribly. And so something to keep in mind, particularly if you have, like older relatives that seem to be changing in their 70s or 80s. They may not be sharing with you childhood trauma they had. This is going to take you back sometimes into the 1940s or 1950s and unfortunately they're feeling that pain now.

Speaker 1: 15:01

This chart and I'm sorry, if I were more tech savvy I probably would put a link so you guys could download this, but if you're looking with your cell phone or watching yourself, if you want to get a screenshot of that because that's a good reference. So we're going to run through. We're going to run through the chakra system and then some of the places we might see and how it shows up with chronic pain. So the root chakra, which is located deep in the body, in front of the spine, in these in the pelvis, but in front of the spine and behind the pelvic bones, is our seat of stability, feeling strong, good immune system, our foundation, and whenever we have some kind of energy blockage there, we might find things like arthritis in the hips, the knees and lower back pain. Also, you might find problems with the immune system. Also, you might find problems with the immune system.

Speaker 1: 16:05

The sacral chakra, which is the energy center of reproduction, so it's in the pelvis, it exists somewhere around the uterus, ovaries and in the pelvis, even for men, and it is associated with our creativity, our sexuality, and it is associated with our creativity, our sexuality. And if we have an energy blockager that's managing as chronic pain, that may show up as pelvic pain, bladder pain, which is sometimes called interstitial cystitis, and that's when the bladder is chronically painful and spasming. It can show up as pain in the sexual organs and also as back pain I forgot to mention that in this slide in the sexual organs and also as back pain. I forgot to mention that in this slide. The solar plexus which is located, solar plexus chakra, which is located around where the stomach is, in the upper abdomen, these don't really exist. In a way, the chakras don't exist in a way. We could find them on an x-ray or an MRI. It's a subtle body, so it's a bundle of energy. Is how we consider it If you have an energy blockage there that is causing pain, that might show up as belly pain, stomach pain, pancreatitis, which is the organ of digestion becoming inflamed and causing lots of pain, and then irritable bowel syndrome sometimes presents as pain the heart chakra, which of course is located in the heart.

Speaker 1: 17:28

If there is a blockage there really disrupts everything, emotional and spiritual, because our heart chakras are actually our center. But in terms of chronic pain, what might show up is angina type pain, so that's pain of the heart, inflammation or pain in the lungs and the thoracic spine, which is the spine of the upper back, having pain there and that could cause back pain or shoulder pain. The throat chakra, which exists in the throat, the neck, and if you're having a blockage that's causing pain, that may show up as neck pain, so pain in the back of the neck or neck tension, so having tense muscles of the neck and the muscles that operate the jaw, so actually having jaw pain or TMJ that might show up there. And neck pain can be disc degeneration, which you can have in any part of the spine, but all of those could be manifestations of chronic pain. Any part of the spine, but all of those could be manifestations of chronic pain.

Speaker 1: 18:47

And then the third eye, which sits in the center of the brain, inside the head. If we have blockages there, which is our seat of intuition, our sight, our perception, so all of our senses. But I will describe to patients that blockages there might show up as pain in the head, migraine headaches, cluster headaches, might also show up as some kind of chronically painful syndrome within the eyes or ears or even the senses. And the last of these is the crown chakra, which is the energy center that exists above our bodies, above our heads and is our connection to higher self and to our spiritual world. And if you have a blockage there, that may show up as generalized pain all over the body and decreased energy.

Speaker 1: 19:31

So make sure you tune in for next week If you would like to hear more on the integrative approach of chronic pain and hear from reflexologist and touchologist Dr Olatunda. If you'd like to be reminded of next week's show, make sure you sign up for my weekly newsletter because I always send out a reminder when a new show comes out. Make sure you check your show notes for the free gift from me as a thank you for being a listener. Free gift for me as a thank you for being a listener, and also check the show notes, because there will be a blog form of this podcast if you'd like to read and get a little bit more information on chronic pain and chronic pain in the chakras. Thank you so much for joining me and I'll see you next week.