Using yoga and meditation to treat chronic pain

Hello, this is my first post! I have started practicing yoga and meditation everyday to help with the chronic pain that I have from a back injury. I became disabled and bed-ridden almost a year ago (December 2019), and have gone through a lot of ups and downs in my recovery. Anyone out there have any experience using yoga and meditation to treat a chronic physical illness?

 

You can check out Brad Willis, Arthur Boorman, B.K.S.Iyengar who have creditted yoga and meditation with their physical rejuvenation when doctors have ruled out any chance of recovery.


Mark Ruffalo has creditted meditation with better mental health while going through a traumatic phase with his physical health issues and family troubles.

Mark Ruffalo opens up about the trauma he’s been suffering for years | Worldation

 

I would check out MBSR (Mindfullness Based Stress Reduction) by Jon Kabat-Zinn at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. It's the only program that I know of to be extensively researched and peer reviewed.
Home - Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction

 

I wish you well on your journey to recovery and pain management.

The two most significant events in my life weren't getting married, or getting divorced, or the deaths of my parents, moving to new cities, or any number of other likely things. The two things that changed my life, by far, the most were (1) becoming a parent - not a great surprise, and (2) adjusting to life after a spine injury that occurred in a vehicle collision 9 years ago. For about the first 2 years, spine specialists held out hope of full recovery. After about 5 years, a specialist for the first time told me that it probably would never get any better, and that there was no surgical intervention available because there was damage on too many levels.

Getting to yoga.... Keep doing your physical therapy home exercises. I'm sure your doctor referred you for physical therapy, probably multiple rounds, and they gave you a set of exercises to do at home. Do them every day, probably for the rest of your life. About 15 months post-injury, I began attending yoga classes. I wish I'd done it sooner. An hour of yoga is better than 30-60 minutes of my physical therapy home exercises, so I substitute yoga about 3 days per week, and have done so for the past several years.

The whole point of yoga, why it was originally developed, was to rid the body of aches and distractions and thereby to prepare one for meditation. Controlling your breathing, becoming more flexible, and balancing your use of major and minor muscles throughout your body through yoga is basically preparation for effective meditation. I don't meditate outside yoga practice, but I believe it may produce some additional positive benefit.

Once you decide that you've gone as far as you can go with mainstream medicine, which wasn't very far toward improvement for me, I recommend that you find a used copy of this book online and buy it: "Mind Over Medicine" by Lissa Rankin, MD. Meditation, including how-to, is one of her main recommendations, and she says good things about yoga. John Sarno is also someone who is currently writing and speaking on meditation specifically for chronic back pain. I've heard him interviewed on the radio, but I've not yet read anything of his.

Whatever you do, and you probably already know this, stay 100 percent away from opioid pain medications. I've always avoided them, and I've begun every new relationship with a doctor by telling him or her that I'm not there for pain medication. They appreciate that, because they have to suspect that every new patient who walks in the door with chronic pain is there because he's been cut-off by another doctor from pain meds, and the new patient is there to feed an addiction.

 

This link may help you

Alternative Treatments for Physical and Mental Illness

 

I use meditation for religious reasons, but I also use some meditations to help with chronic pain from car accidents.

Yes, meditation can help. I do it in conjunction with techniques from Hatha Yoga, Feldenkrais, and Alexander Technique.

What aids me are these kind of physical Hatha Yoga relaxation exercises in conjunction with meditation.

Also re back injuries...make sure you hydrate properly and plenty. Make sure you have a truly good mattress. A bad one will throw your healing back a great deal.

Make sure you get tons of sleep...7 or 8 hours daily, every day. Without good sleep, you can kiss healing goodbye.

And I would recommend getting some direct work from chiropractic or cranio-sacral therapy.

Oh, and some good daily Yoga stretches for the injuries themselves. But don't DIY that. Really have to have a chiropractor or other medical professional direct you as to which specific Yoga stretches are good for you.

For example, I do the cobra. But for some people that is the opposite direction and makes injuries worse. So, you do have to be careful and have what you do reviewed.

People talk about ending pain through meditation. If you are talking about serious pain, in history there are always a handful of people who can do that...say like Mahatma Gandhi. But the vast majority of us don't have meditation skill at that level. That is for the top .01% or something. For the rest of us it helps, but does not entirely dominate and conquer major pain from major injuries.