My Journey Through the Pain By Robin Lutchansky

"It was agony, every day. Just waking up in the morning and walking to the bathroom hurt. Every single step I took shot incredible pain up my leg and into my brain. And we’re not talking about those little aches and pains you have as you grow older, we’re talking the mind-numbing pain that takes over your sight and makes it hard to take a full breath. I had no choice but to live in a wheelchair if I was going to live at all, and to take pain meds, plenty of them, because living in that kind of pain every day, every step, almost every breath is incredibly difficult. Trying to accomplish the everyday things it takes to live was a major chore, and when I was successful at one thing, like making dinner, it was a major accomplishment.

It was a sad and lonely life with no hope of it ever changing. There was no surgery to take away the pain and I had tried every other medical alternative already with no good results. I was stuck in a lifetime of misery and would’ve been happy to not wake up the next morning. In fact, I’m pretty sure I was dying and gladly knocking or even banging on death’s door, and everyone around me was horrified to watch the process but powerless to do anything about it.

Out of desperation, I called St. Helena Recovery Center. They said you don’t need us, you need Pacifica Pain Management. And that was the beginning of the end, or actually, the beginning of the beginning. I was scared to death though because if I gave up the drugs, I couldn’t fathom how I could live a life in that kind of constant pain.

But Pacifica Pain started to teach me, slowly but surely, how to turn my life around. For example, the coach at the program encouraged me calmly and patiently to start walking again, and to do it very slowly so I could remember how to walk correctly, heel down, roll on the foot, and lift off at the ball. Then he gave me 2 pound weights to start lifting. He got me moving again and using the muscles that had atrophied from sitting in a wheelchair for so long.

And here is where the miracle starts because as a result of the techniques they taught me, i.e meditation, biofeedback and cognitive therapy, my pain level was at an all time low of 0 to 1. The biofeedback taught by Peter Behel in particular was extremely effective. It taught me an extremely important lesson on how to manage my pain. Biofeedback is a complementary and alternative pain therapy which trains you to use your mind to control body functions that are typically involuntary, such as muscle tension and heart rate During the biofeedback training, sensors were placed on my body to measure whether or not I was able to control certain muscle groups and my breathing, and to give “feedback” as to what I was doing correctly. What these sensors do is display my biological data such as my heart rate or physical tension in a visual form which allowed me to become aware of my body processes that were being controlled unconsciously.

Now, I know this sounds all airy-fairy, but the weird thing is that it worked. And I really didn’t believe it would make much of a difference because I was in serious pain, and learning what I thought of as these “silly” breathing techniques certainly wouldn’t be able to make much of a difference to the level of pain. Thank God I was so wrong. In fact, as a result of the training, I learned how to relax my muscles in the injured areas. I was so used to holding my leg in a rigid and tense position to avoid the pain that it had become unconscious.

I spent so much time and energy trying NOT to be in pain that I had changed the way I walk, causing additional problems in my body, but the biggest problem was that I was doing it unconsciously. Biofeedback made me aware of what I was doing, and how I was actually increasing my pain rather than helping the problem. Peter taught me how clenching my muscles constantly actually made the pain worse. So, I had to consciously will my bad leg to relax to stop avoiding the pain and actually be willing to feel the pain. Then the most amazing thing happened. By being willing to feel the pain, and by changing and normalizing my walk, the pain began to abate significantly.

Bottom line, biofeedback taught me how to control my body functions which reduced the tension and pain for me in a dramatic way. The cool thing is that I was taught how to do these things for myself, so I wasn’t tied to having to work only with a biofeedback professional in order for it to work. And learning how I could do it myself let me feel more in control and confident about my problem. The biofeedback opened my eyes to the stressors in my life and how I was responding to them, allowing me to apply the new stress management skills I was learning at Pacifica Pain into my daily life. As is probably true for any chronic condition, the key to success was to learn to manage my own condition effectively and to be consistent in using it as a coping strategy.

Now, a year later, I still have to consciously will myself to relax my leg because it’s become such an automatic response for me after being in pain for over 10 years, and it still surprises me every time I do it and the pain goes away. Every time I think, well, it can’t work this time, this time it hurts too much…but no, it still works! I even work out in a gym five times a week and with a trainer 3 times a week.

Since I finished the program, my life has changed dramatically. First of all, I have a life now. A full life complete with friends, a social life, shopping, cleaning and sleeping. What I used to consider drudgery, like cleaning, is a joy to be able to complete on my own now. Every interaction I have with another human being is another miracle to me because I never thought I’d ever get out of that wheelchair and I never thought I’d be happy again. I experience joy and laughter at the smallest things, appreciating them for the miracles they are in my life. My friends are absolutely precious to me, and have saved my life emotionally time and time again.

I’ve been Born Again, but not a Born Again Christian, which would be extremely difficult since I’m Jewish, but a Born Again Human Being. And that’s the point -- today I am a being, not just a blob of existence. Without Pacific Pain and biofeedback, I wouldn’t have had existence much longer. But not only do I have a life, I have my business back, albeit at a much smaller level than before, but just to be working again is a wonder. I have clients, I will soon have employees, I’m traveling for business, and I will be flying to New York, Arizona, Israel and Germany soon on business and without a wheelchair for the first time in years. I’m 100 pounds lighter because I don’t have to drag that wheelchair everywhere I go.

Life looks completely different, and I am all the better for it, and am grateful that I have a chance to live again, so grateful in fact that I ensure that I share my experience with as many people as possible so that they may see that being in chronic pain doesn’t have to make you miserable forever. With some tools, a lot of support and a tremendous change in attitude, chronic pain can be just another facet in your life and not the primary focus of everything you do. My physical pain may not be optional, but my emotional pain is a choice, a new choice I now have the ability to make on a daily basis, and today I choose to live with my pain, not in spite of it. And that is the greatest miracle of all."


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