(Posted 2/22/2006)
Pain can be crippling and for many people medication is just not enough "I've been an expert in pain medications for a long time – many years – and what I found was that pain medications did only so much" says Dr Jackie Gardner-Nix, who now treats chronic pain with meditation. "We are decreasing their bodily pain, we're decreasing the intensity of their pain and we're increasing their quality of life,"
Dr. Gardner-Nix began offering meditation to her patients after finding that for many pain medications were inadequate. At her meditation program at the Sunnybrook and St. Michael's hospitals in Toronto, 370 patients suffering chronic untreatable pain have been taught meditation as a treatment.
She has gathered data on 45 patients who have shown significant improvement in pain management through her meditation course. She found that after 10 weeks involving 10 to 20 minutes of daily meditation, many patients were better able to manage their pain. Her findings were presented during the Australian International Pain Conference on August 24, 2005.
Patient Corrine Humphreys experienced chronic pain for more than 10 years before finding meditation. A car accident had caused spinal injury, nerve damage and constant discomfort. "I had quit work, I had quit school. I laid in bed and never got out of bed." Corrine tried various pain medications and even electrical implants to control the pain, but even that wasn't enough. When she began to meditate she was skeptical, but felt she had nothing to loose.
"I was very shocked at how well meditation worked and how fast it worked for me." In fact Gardner-Nix's program was so effective that Humphreys was able to stop using her pain medications completely.
Dr. Roman Jovey of the Canadian Pain Society is interested in what patients like Humphreys have to say about meditation and finds Gardner-Nix's study promising. "There are so many people who are suffering with so few resources that anything that has the potential to help patients manage their chronic pain is a good thing,"
The findings of this study are compelling but more research is needed before any conclusions can be drawn. A second study involving more patients will be published later this year.
The original article entitled Meditation Effective for Chronic Pain: was published by CTVNews At 11 on Sun. Aug. 28 2005. It was found at http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1125069391890_120478591/?hub=CTVNewsAt11
| 
