by Manon Bolliger, facilitator & retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice | About Your Health
“The science of medicine must be deployed to elucidate the art of medicine; otherwise, medicine falls short, both as science and art.” (Miller & Colloca, 2011) I set a mission for myself when I began this blog. It has been a long journey, lasting several years....
by Manon Bolliger, facilitator & retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice | About Your Health
In my last post I discussed the findings of a set of vertebroplasty studies that revealed the power of the positive “placebo” effect of informed patients. Let me quote at length one research group’s evaluation: “The power of information disclosure to influence patient...
by Manon Bolliger, facilitator & retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice | About Your Health
Over the next couple posts I’m going to discuss a case study that casts a helpful light upon our recent discussion of the so-called placebo type positive effect resulting from a treatment approach that privileges informing and empowering patients. In this study on...
by Manon Bolliger, facilitator & retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice | About Your Health
Is there something that has yet to be better understood that takes place when a patient engages in a course of treatment? According to Milton Cohen, when considering pain there is, “The self-referentiality of living systems (through their qualities of autopoiesis,...
by Manon Bolliger, facilitator & retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice | About Your Health
As we’ve seen over the last couple posts, the placebo effect discussion is a little more complicated than seems at first flush. We could redefine the “placebo effect” as the “aligned and committed effect” or the “positive effect.” Unwarranted, preconceived negatives...
by Manon Bolliger, facilitator & retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice | About Your Health, Addressing Your Pain
In the last post we discussed how research on the placebo effect complicated a lot of assumptions about pharmacological research. But if the manifestations of improved health are not a result of physiological effects, it’s fair to ask: if we’re not the disease, are we...
by Manon Bolliger, facilitator & retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice | About Your Health, Addressing Your Pain
We left off the last post pointing out the ethical quandary around using the placebo effect for therapeutic purposes. Consider the fact that as NDs, “Do no Harm” is a fundamental tenet of our practice. Everything else aside, if the results are similar whether or not...
by Manon Bolliger, facilitator & retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice | About Your Health, Addressing Your Pain
In the last post, we saw widespread findings showing a pervasive placebo effect with the use of pharmacological treatments. What do these findings tell us? Why all these variable results? If drugs are supposed to have a predictable result on certain pathways or for...
by Manon Bolliger, facilitator & retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice | About Your Health, Addressing Your Pain
In Sheather-Reid’s 1990s study on efficacy of pain relief agents, the agents used were opioids and non-opioid analgesics (such as nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and acetaminophen (paracetamol)) to examine the analgesic efficacy of the opioid agonist codeine...
by Manon Bolliger, facilitator & retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice | About Your Health, Addressing Your Pain
In the last post we saw the powerful affects of priming individuals as a means to reduce the experience of pain. This confirms our conviction that mindfulness is an essential component in the effective treatment of pain and trauma. The flip side of the matter can be...
by Manon Bolliger, facilitator & retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice | About Your Health, Addressing Your Pain
In contrast to the more empowered approach, discussed over the last several posts, of viewing a patient’s pain as “one of their symptoms,” a pathophysiological approach to pain focuses on pain relief as the primary objective. The choice of intervention is usually...
by Manon Bolliger, facilitator & retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice | About Your Health, Addressing Your Pain
This is a bit of a longer post, but I’ll ask you to hang in there with me. We’re covering complex, but really important stuff, here. What we learned last post, about pain and perception, suggests that our therapeutic treatments, lacking research, may be onto something...
by Manon Bolliger, facilitator & retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice | About Your Health, Addressing Your Pain
In the last several posts, from a variety of angles, we’ve examined the mind-body dimensions of treatment for pain, seeing how it is essential to treat the trauma rather than the symptoms. This has involved treating the body as a carrier of meaning, whose history...
by Manon Bolliger, facilitator & retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice | About Your Health, Addressing Your Pain
In my last post I raised the issue of fear as a meaning invested in the body and its symptoms. The correlation of the body part with the fearful memory deeply connects and acknowledges the fear. Making explicit the mind-body connection helps release the traumatic...
by Manon Bolliger, facilitator & retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice | About Your Health, Addressing Your Pain
In recent posts we’ve been discussing the value of a paradigm shift to thinking of the body as a carrier of meaning and the health care opportunities it affords. As one commentator observed: finding ways for patients to shift their perspectives, to achieve “…a shift...
by Manon Bolliger, facilitator & retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice | About Your Health, Addressing Your Pain
In the last post we looked at the research on the human body as a carrier of meaning, with a discernible history with lessons to teach us. Let’s look at this idea more closely. The work of Steen et al., “Generalized chronic musculoskeletal pain as a rational reaction...
by Manon Bolliger, facilitator & retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice | About Your Health, Addressing Your Pain
In recent posts we’ve been considering the therapeutic benefits to dealing with stress as a strategy for addressing pain and cancer. But what is the story behind these concerns with stress? Researchers have long questioned why some people are resilient to stress while...
by Manon Bolliger, facilitator & retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice | About Your Health, Addressing Your Pain
In a study funded by The National Institute on Aging and the National Cancer Institute, researchers interviewed 94 women whose breast cancer had spread (metastatic) or returned (recurrent) about the stress in their lives. David Spiegel, M.D., one of the study’s...
