I read them so you don't have to. Here is a very interesting article from today's Wall Street Journal on PAIN. something all of us are all too familiar with.
Rewiring the Brain for Pain Relief
It's NCCAM sponsored . Here's some excerpts
[quote]"There is a growing recognition that drugs are only part of the solution and that people who live with chronic pain have to develop a strategy that calls upon some inner resources," says Josephine Briggs, director of NCCAM, which has funded much of the research into alternative approaches to pain relief
....That doesn't mean that the pain is imaginary, experts stress. In fact, brain scans show that chronic pain (defined as pain that lasts at least 12 weeks or a long time after the injury has healed) represents a malfunction in the brain's pain processing systems. The pain signals take detours into areas of the brain involved with emotion, attention and perception of danger and can cause gray matter to atrophy. That may explain why some chronic pain sufferers lose some cognitive ability, which is often thought to be a side effect of pain medication. [/quote]
Keep the Faith
Charm