Gaétan Brouillard - Rethink Chronic Pain: Relieve Suffering, Heal Your Body, Own Your Health

Copyright 2020 by Dr. Gatan Brouillard

English translation copyright 2020 by David Warriner

Originally published in French as La douleur repense: Ce nest pas parce quon a mal quon doit

ncessairement souffrir by Dr. Gatan Brouillard 2017 Les ditions de lHomme, a division of

Groupe Sogides inc., Montreal, Quebec

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ISBN 978-1-77164-463-1 (pbk.)

ISBN 978-1-77164-464-8 (epub)

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Medical review by Dr. Tanya Cabrita

This work reflects the ideas and opinions of the author. It aims to provide useful information on the topics covered in these pages. Neither the author nor the publisher is offering medical, health, or other professional services in this book. Before putting the suggestions in this book into practice or drawing conclusions from them, readers should consult their general practitioner or another competent health professional. The author and the publisher are not responsible for any liability, damage, loss, or risk, whether personal or otherwise, suffered as a result of the direct or indirect use or application of any element of the contents of this work. Patient names have been changed to protect privacy.

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Contents

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Introduction

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PAIN IS UNIVERSAL, and to some degree, its a part of our daily lives. Whether its the dull ache of a small dental cavity or the intense shooting pain of a broken bone, pain is a fact of life, and it always has been. Most pain comes and goes, but when it persistsfor longer than three to six months, by definitionit becomes chronic. Chronic pain affects more than 20 percent of us at some point in our lives, and sometimes it lasts for the rest of our lives. Pain is the number one reason people visit the doctors office, and its also the main motivation for seeking medical help for chronic conditions. Its a bigger problem in todays society than we might think. I have encountered people whose pain was so unbearable they were near the brink of suicide.

After more than forty years of medical practice focused on relieving human suffering, I felt a duty to help people in pain understand what theyre going through. Why me? they ask. Why am I trapped in this vicious cycle of pain? It seems so unfair.

I also felt that I should share my knowledge by offering people simple tools to help relieve the various ailments that are so frequent on this great planet of ours, where modern medicine is still very much experimenting when it comes to explaining and treating the pervasive presence of pain.

Ill be the first to admit that pain is not something thats easy to wrap our heads around, and its even harder to live with. Pain may be inevitable at some point or another, so its important for us to learn how to break free from its grip insofar as possible, using techniques that are often simple and without undesirable side effects. Ideally, we should also become more aware and mindful of the distressing reality of chronic pain, because if we dont, it can easily ruin our lives.

We might not realize it, but we often play a significant part in the genesis of our pain. The good news is that we can also play an active part in overcoming our pain, or at least relieving it. Lets not forget that we are always the co-creators of our own lives. As the American author James Baldwin said, Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.

QUALITY MEDICINE THAT PUTS PEOPLE FIRST

This book offers a general overview and a fresh outlook for anyone suffering from pain. Well explore some of the latest treatments that are recognized in North America and around the world, and well offer ways to understand the pain that can sometimes be hard to separate ourselves from.

Science has now proven just how important a role our lifestyle can play in the quality of our health, Its time to embrace an approach to medicine that doesnt just prescribe treatment for pain and illness, but that also probes the cause of the conditions that ail us.

My preferred approach is functional medicine, which aims to treat the whole person by tracing imbalances in the body back to their source. Functional medicine works at every level of our being.

We must stop being so resistant to complementary health approaches. After all, these treatments are widely recognized and deliver great benefits to the significant numbers of patients who try them. Now is the time for us to stand up and take our health in hand. This is a message that speaks for itself, and its what Ive been striving to convey to my patients for more than forty years.

HOW I CAME TO SPECIALIZE IN TREATING PAIN

I started my career as a doctor at Montreals Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital, in one of the busiest emergency rooms in Canada that deals with some of the most serious cases there are. Pain is everywhere you look in the ER, and emergency doctors have no choice but to treat it. That duty extends to every physician, even outside the er, because nearly 75 percent of a family doctors work consists of treating pain. Pain is therefore a normal part of medical practice.

Back pain was one of the most common complaints my colleagues and I encountered in the emergency room. Whether they were the victims of a workplace accident, an unfortunate fall, a failed attempt to lift something heavy, or simply the slightest false move at home, patients would often arrive by ambulance, their pain so intense they couldnt move.

At some point I realized how limited the approach of traditional Western medicine was when it came to relieving and treating this kind of pain. Of course, we had access to painkillers and muscle relaxants, but these drugs took time to kick in, not to mention that they couldnt completely control the pain. And any spasmodic pain (which causes cramps) or neurological pain (connected to nerve damage) that ensued would often take a long time to fade away. Whats more, we often saw patients returning several weeks or months later, complaining of a problem we thought we had solved. Why were these recurrences so frequent? Because we hadnt identified what was at the root of the complaint. We had only treated the symptoms, and not the source of the problem.