I really enjoy working with clients with CRPS. It seems to be one of the most painful pain conditions but also one of the quickest and easiest to fix. I think this is because it is often experienced in isolation and has not ended up linked in with many other conditions such as chronic fatigue and anxiety. I have seen nearly all my CRPS clients recover – even higher success rates than my other client groups. The record holder so far was able to get rid of all her CRPS pain and restore normal skin tone in seven minutes!
A medical answer is that there is swelling in the central nervous system and maladaptive neural pathways which send pain messages through the body that are disproportionate to the original injury experienced. Fluctuating blood flow can cause extra swelling, skin turning red or purple, temperature changes and sharp pain. With time, the pain usually starts to spread from the original injury site (around 90% of sufferers) and for an unlucky 35%, the pain is then felt all over the body. However, this still begs the question – why? Clients often report that their initial injury was so small and insignificant, and yet a few weeks later, they are suddenly in enormous pain. I believe that this is because their body has got stuck in a stress response and this has affected their neural pathways. I have observed that people with CRPS are usually very high achievers and very driven, which has put their system under huge demand. They are often young children who are star sports players or academics and are succumbing to the pressure of being so successful. This can be a contributing factor to their pain.
There are two options for CRPS treatment at Empower Therapies:
The Switch (four day programme) teaches you about how your brain produces pain messages and how you can re-programme those faulty neural pathways. You will learn techniques that you will need to practice often to switch off those faulty neural pain messages and to close the neurological pain gates throughout your body that have become falsely open. You will also learn about the role of stress in producing pain, and about thinking patterns and beliefs that exacerbate pain. You will explore any underlying emotional issues from your past that are also contributing to your pain and learn simple, quick techniques for releasing old issues.
I have also had success by doing a combo of the webinar series and an NLP (Neuro-linguistic Programming) session that I have personally developed, tailor-made for CRPS clients. This approach teaches people about the physiology of pain and how to use techniques to simply shut the pain gates. It does not deal with emotional issues and stress response, so this intervention is not suitable for everyone. While it has completely stopped all pain within one session for a number of clients, I have found that some of them developed pain again several years later and then needed the full Switch programme to deal with the background issues that have not been addressed by such a short intervention. It may be advisable to do the full Switch programme even if the NLP session has stopped the pain.
Sign up for The Switch® full programme!
1. Get your hope back about recovery being possible by watching some of the movies on this website. Just knowing that there is an answer can help people to relax and calm their stress response and start getting improvements.
2. Start actively reducing your stress response by doing things like meditation, breathing exercises, and activities that you find particularly relaxing.
3. Every time you catch yourself thinking about your pain, immediately make yourself think about something else instead. If you re-route your brain often enough, you can start creating changes to those faulty neural pathways.
4. Spend time everyday visualising all your pain gates shutting (perhaps you need to do some gate maintenance such as painting them, squirting CRC on the hinges et cetera?), or imagining a giant truck jack knifing on a motorway, blocking all the pain traffic from getting through. An orthopaedic surgeon has reported good results with his clients by getting them to use this imagery, as it helps to slow down the automatic pain message traffic going through your body.
If these suggestions fix your CRPS – FANTASTIC! If these very simple interventions are not enough for you, that’s OK. We have a lot of far more comprehensive techniques and education available at The Switch that will allow you to make bigger transformations.
* Disclaimer: Mel Abbott is not a medically trained doctor. She is trained in psychology and neuro-linguistic programming. She uses mind-body interventions to help calm the stress response and allow natural healing to occur in the body. This can be used alongside mainstream treatments if you choose. She does not offer diagnoses or medication advice. She recommends that clients return to their doctors after her treatment to confirm that they no longer have their condition and to be advised about safe weaning from their medication.
Mel does careful assessments prior to the programme and only offers places to people whom she thinks would benefit from it. She follows up with all her clients at several junctions after their course and collates the data from their feedback forms to produce the statistics on this website. She is therefore confident that her interventions are helping over 80% of her clients to achieve significant improvements to their health. While many clients report that they have made a full recovery, Mel cannot guarantee this outcome. So far there are no independent research studies or peer reviewed journal articles about The Switch®, though she would welcome such studies to take place.
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