It’s been 14 months now that I’ve been living with a debilitating neurological disorder all due to my participation in the clinical research study for Psilocybin (magic mushrooms). The intensity of the dose I was given caused me to convulse non stop for close to 6 hours straight with absolutely no intervention whatsoever from the 2 doctors who were observing me while scribbling notes on their clipboards the entire time.
The damage I am living with now has affected every aspect of my life since and has caused a further decline in my mental health including symptoms of PTSD from many sights, sounds and touch.
For the past year I have been bounced around between one specialist after another after another and I am still waiting on two more recent referrals. I have yet to receive any answers or solutions thus far except to be told by one Neurologist about a year ago over a Zoom call that a circuit broke in my brain that day and hopefully it will fix itself one day.
If I sound repetitive and bitter and frustrated, it’s only because I am.
The other night my girlfriend dropped by for a visit and she was very excited to share with me a podcast she wanted me to listen to. She told me that while she listened to it herself, all she could think of was me. The moderator of the podcast is a Psychologist friend of hers and the guest speaker was a loved one whose life was turned upside down for several years due to chronic and debilitating pain that seemingly came out of nowhere. She too spent much of her time seeking the help of one specialist after another trying to figure out the root cause of her pain. By this point she had very little quality of life and was forced to defer her first year of medical school. And then one day at one of her many doctor’s appointments he suggested she read a book called “The Way Out” (which literally saved her life). It was written by Alan Gordon; a licensed Psychologist and Founder of the Pain Psychology Center in LA. Alan began studying Neuroplastic pain after he himself became debilitated by chronic pain throughout his entire body (including his tongue) for several years and he too became frustrated by the lack of effective treatment. From his own suffering, Alan “developed the ground-breaking Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT) – a highly effective system of psychological techniques that rewire the brain’s neural circuits to turn off “stuck” pain signals”.
Neuroplastic is the brain’s way of actually learning pain. Put concisely, “neuroplastic pain occurs when your brain mistakes safe nervous signals from the body as dangerous, generating a pain response”, which can then become “a habitual mistake that the brain can develop over time”. Alan states in a podcast he did with Mayim Bialik (Mayim herself was a patient of Alan’s for many years) that pain is a danger signal. He further expands on his theory giving the example that if you put your hand on a hot stove, the pain is your brain’s way of letting you know that you have to move your hand so you don’t cause more damage. Pain is a survival mechanism with the goal to not allow us to injure ourselves worse but sometimes the brain can make a mistake and interpret pain when there is none, making us feel pain when there actually is none.
The pain is real, but in cases like mine it’s being caused by our brain and not by our body. Body pain is considered “structural”, usually due to an injury.
After further research over the last couple of days (which included listening to Mayim’s podcast she did with Alan), his theories began to intrigue me more and more and have a better understanding as to why my friend was so excited to have me listen to her friend’s podcast.
There are 12 criteria for Neuroplastic pain which I was shocked to discover that I fit perfectly into at least 10 of the 12 categories. You don’t however need to fit into every category though to have your pain be considered Neuroplastic.
Here are some examples of the criteria that describe my situation:
1. Pain originated during a stressful time or was triggered by stress
2. Pain originated without an injury
3. Pain symptoms spread and/or move about your body
4. Symptoms are symmetrical
5. There is a lack of physical diagnosis
6. You have multiple symptoms
I’ve experimented with many very unsuccessful and sometimes further damaging treatments over the years like CBT, Ketamine, ECT, Psilocybin and Neurofeedback pertaining to my mental health journey which were meant to help rewire my brain but now I will give it a try and delve into the science behind “Pain Reprocessing Therapy” (PRT) outlined in Alan’s book, “The Way Out” to see if I can rewire my brain and break the cycle of chronic pain instead. At least this time I know there will be no physical harm in trying.
https://www.painpsychotherapy.ca/blog-2/12-criteria-for-neuroplastic-pain
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YouAreEnough 
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