FWD:Pain Question and answer-What is Biofeedback?

Pain Question & Answer

Biofeedback
by Scott M. Fishman, MD

Question: I am 66 years old and my doctor says I have poor circulation in my arteries causing me to have leg pain. My doctor has suggested that I have biofeedback training to relieve this pain. What is biofeedback?

Answer: Biofeedback is a time tested methodology for using the power of the mind to treat pain. Sometimes patients hear that we want to use the power of the mind to treat pain and suspect we may not believe that their pain is real. This is quite the contrary.

Patients in pain are similar to athletes who perform elite sports, in whom we teach use of psychological techniques for improved performance and overcoming enormous distressing sensations. Imagine the pain that must be involved in withstanding an iron man competition, or overcoming the pain of the last 1/2-hour of a brutal marathon race. We are very successful at training athletes to modulate their pain sensations through techniques that allow these individuals to monitor their bodily reactions to stress. For instance, we use techniques that improve the ability to distract oneself from pain as well as other forms of attention to their bodily functions, so that they get control over their pain rather than their pain controlling them. Biofeedback represents a spectrum of techniques that harness our attention to our bodily reactions so that we can better control them. Often, biofeedback may involve using different machines and different electrical technology that helps us receive information about how our body reacts to the way that we think. By doing this, we may then gain control over those reactions and then use that control to make changes that can help us feel to better. Through biofeedback training, patients are not only able to get control over pain, but also bodily functions that they may have thought previously impossible, such as control over high blood pressure or control over anxiety.

There are many other forms of mind-body therapies that can help with using the mind to reduce pain. These include mindfulness meditation, cognitive behavioral techniques, hypnosis amongst many others. Patients may be directed to these therapies from many sources including through a multidisciplinary pain clinic or through their general physician.

January, 2007