Mindfulness meditation and chronic pain

my little Buddha in the snow

For the last 21 years my life has been blighted by a neuromuscular disorder called chronic myofascial pain or CMP. 

http://my.clevelandclinic.org/disorders/chronic_myofascial_pain/hic_chronic_myofascial_pain_cmp.aspx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myofascial_pain_syndrome

The condition can be managed but, so far, cannot be cured.  I'll write about how it originated and how I manage it in another blog.  For now I want to record the start of a new effort on my part to get better.  I’m going to try eight weeks of mindfulness meditation.

http://www.mindfullivingprograms.com/meditationresearch.php

snow melting

I've meditated on and off since 1978, mostly using attention to breath methods but my focus has been sporadic. You know how it goes…all enthusiastic for a few months, then it’s Christmas or you get a cold and your practice gets lost. Then another surge of interest and off you go again. This time however I want to persevere. 

When giving me my diagnosis about six years ago my consultant said to me “the only thing that has reversed this condition is meditation.” I was still reeling at being told I had an incurable neuromuscular problem so I hardly heard him. I did go to a class for while but didn’t continue. 

still melting

Now I’m going to give it a shot according to the methods of the MBSR in Massachusetts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindfulness-based_stress_reduction

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Kabat-Zinn

I’m going to do 45 minutes mindfulness meditation six days a week for eight weeks and see how I feel. Research by Dr Jon Kabat-Zinn, over the last thirty years, is now showing that the pain perception area of the brain is altered by regular meditation. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSU8ftmmhmw&feature=relmfu

(this is a long talk, all of which is interesting, however the medical research part is found roughly at 0:37:16)

Surely it has to be better than codeine and diazepam.

at last, Buddha revealed

 

I'll keep this blog posted on my progress

Wishing you health and happiness