I DON'T normally focus on an individual patient; however, this situation is exceptional. Along with my colleague, we have just finished rebuilding a patient's entire mouth of worn teeth.
This involved multiple long sessions to restore the teeth back to their original shapes. This in itself is not unusual. What is, is that not once during the whole process did the patient want any anaesthesia.
Even though some of the restorations were super deep and near to the nerve, the patient never flinched a muscle. It was amazing.
At the end of the treatment, I asked how they had managed this. They replied that they were aware of the discomfort but had trained their brain not to respond to the pain - super wow.
This is an impressive example of how powerful our brains can be when trained.
As dentists, we treat patients with face pain that can linger for years and years. More often than not, people with chronic pain end up depressed and reclusive.
As the effectiveness of traditional painkillers tends to taper off over time, people can be left feeling desperate. More and more neurological research is pointing towards harnessing the power of the brain to reduce pain.
The brain makes pain - it's not made in the area of the body that has been damaged. Take facial muscle pains; initially, these could have started due to a poor bite but in certain cases, the pain receptors go out of control and start overfiring. This overstimulates the brain resulting in pains that don't shift.
A bit like if you meant to turn on one light on a Christmas tree but all the lights illuminate in one go. The trick is to turn off the pain 'lights' in the brain, to calm it down and reduce the pain.
Identifying anything that makes you feel bad is the first goal; reduce anything that's negative and replace with all things brain-calming. Brain boosters are things like walking, exercise, deep breathing, positive self-talk, natural food diet and meditation.
Everyone has different challenges in their lives, so this process is completely individual but eventually, with practice, brain training can reduce chronic pain.
