Is Pain Just All In The Brain?

Eleanor Stein, MD

You’re welcome. Thank you for the opportunity.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

I like the title. Fibromyalgia is over. Comparable. Yeah. You have your own personal story. So as a psychiatrist in Canada, you’ve battled this. I think you told me in 1989, and this was a tough journey for you, but through trial and error, you were able to overcome your challenge with fibromyalgia, property syndrome, and then you set out on a quest to share this success that you had with others so that they, too, can benefit from some of the research that you’ve found along it along your journey.

Eleanor Stein, MD

Yeah, that’s true. And I think that’s where my message of hope comes from that I can because people say to me they usually call me Ellie. So Ellie, can I really get better? Like I’ve had emails just within the last few days. I run an online course in this debate has come up, you know, among the participants. Is it really true that we could get better? And I what I don’t want to say everyone can get better. Of course, and not everyone can get better in the same way. But I think there’s much more hope than I initially thought. So when I got sick in 1989, you know, you’re probably aware we didn’t barely even know what FM was.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

And that’s when I started treating FM and early nineties. Yeah. Yeah.

Eleanor Stein, MD

And we didn’t even agree on a name, you know, people were still calling up fibro sites and all these other names. And so the narrative at that time that I had access to at least was uniformly I’m like dismal, unhelpful. And everything I read well wasn’t even online yet. Like the Internet was in its infancy. But, you know, everything I read was This is it. You’re going to have to live with this for the rest of your life. So despite I felt, I kind of accepted that. But nevertheless, being a physician and, you know, being curious, I thought, well, if I can get better even a little bit, I’m going to be going for that. And so over the next 25 years, I tried everything. I studied environmental medicine, functional medicine, integrative medicine, all these things. And in addition to conventional medicine, I tried so many things myself, did all the tests, all the protocols, and I think all of those kept me in the game. Like if I hadn’t done all those things, you know, who knows where I would be now?

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Yeah.

Eleanor Stein, MD

But in the end, when I finally really turned the corner and got dramatically better, I actually wasn’t doing any of those fancy things. I was really paying close attention to self-management. So I had been doing, you know, working on my sleep. I had done a pretty dramatic diet change, which I now in retrospect think was a big part of the answer. For me personally, I’m not sure it will be for everybody. Pacing, managing stress, you know, balancing my schedule like all of those pretty simple things that the average person can do irrespective of finances and circumstances. And that’s what’s kind of led me to, you know, be on forums like this to try to get the message out that even people who are quite severely ill or who, like me, had been ill for a really long time and maybe who don’t have the resources to take advantage of some of the awesome treatment protocols that I’m sure you’re going to hear about on this summit. There’s still hope.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think what’s happened over the years is initially this was my looking back just kind of my journey. And I remember seeing this is initially when I started working with patients with fibromyalgia, we didn’t really know what we were dealing with right. And I fortunately had some good, good luck. My first patient of fibromyalgia, she got well in three months. It doesn’t happen, you know, but she but for whatever, you know, everything that everything lined up for her and it was perfect. But what we started to hear as more and more people got the diagnosis and then the pharmaceutical industry got involved with surveillance about Lyrica, we thought that, okay, there was going to be a drug or a drug cocktail that would solve this thing called fibromyalgia, like something with diabetes or high blood pressure and that just didn’t work out right. And then not.

Eleanor Stein, MD

So.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

You know, and then what happened, I think, is most physicians really got discouraged with their fibroid patients. I mean, as you know, a lot of rheumatologists won’t even take any new fibromyalgia patients. They become so jaded because they know that prescription medicine alone is a dead end for these folks. There’s definitely time. And there’s a place that, you know, no doubt about it. But they’ve seen that their patients who are using the two common drugs to treat fibromyalgia, they don’t get better. And so they’ve just come to this false conclusion that you just have to learn to live with it. You and I would we would definitely beg to differ. Right. I mean, obviously, you’ve had success in your own journey, but you’ve also had a tremendous amount of sex with your patients, as I have with mine. And we’ve done it in different ways. You know, there’s not one way. There’s multiple ways. 

There’s some common things that we share. But there’s all kinds of ways. So you’re offering hope, which I love to hear, you know, because I think that’s in short, short supply for a lot of these folks. They don’t hear that, that they can feel better. And I don’t tell people that I can cure them, but I tell them that I can help them get healthier and king around getting healthier and as you get healthier, oftentimes you get to where you’re feeling better and better and better and better. But tell me a little bit about what are the things you got in your little questionnaire that we share together was the importance of deep restorative sleep, which is the first on my list. Tell me, why is it so important?

Eleanor Stein, MD

Well, the body can’t heal, right? Sleep is when deep, deep sleep and REM sleep. During those times we heal different aspects of our functioning. So during deep sleep were consolidating declarative memory, meaning all the stuff we experienced and learned that day totally goes out of our brain unless we get deep sleep. That’s when it actually goes from the hippocampus into the into the middle of the deep cortex where it’s like permanently stored, like on the hard drive. And during REM sleep is when we consolidate and remember a like movements and ends like, say, if you’re learning a sport or an instrument or a language, things that are more a process. So without deep sleep, we can’t learn and without learning we can’t improve our health. So to me, the other thing about sleep, of course, is circadian rhythm, which is like the master switch for almost everything in the body. So for those two reasons, both because we need good quality sleep to learn and to change, and we need regular circadian rhythm to, I guess, what’s the word like have everything on schedule, right? All of our hormones and neurotransmitters and bodily functions need to be working in sync.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Yeah. Yes. That by a rhythm that we need to make sure that that it’s working correctly. And, and, you know, everyone who has fibro thinking you had one to sleep, lady.

Eleanor Stein, MD

Right, right, right.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

You hear that in your practice, I’m sure. And that was probably something you faced as well. But I feel like if you don’t get that right, because it’s really, you know, fibromyalgia is a puzzle kind of like that. You got all the pieces of the puzzle thrown out on the table. And where do you start? And for me, for the last 22 years, I’ve always focused on sleep because, I mean, it just makes sense. If you’re not getting a good night’s sleep, you’re gonna be to the next day. If you’re not getting a good night’s sleep for the last decade, you’re going to be exhausted. 

And it increases your inflammatory chemicals, increases or decreases your metabolism. So you’re saying your energy goes down and there’s just multiple layers of dysfunction if you’re not sleeping correctly. So definitely agree with you. I think sleep is numero uno. Yeah, but you talk a lot. You bring up about this condition called neuroplasticity. Mm hmm. And I’d like to. I’d like to pick your brain. First of all, for those of you who have not heard this term neuroplasticity, can you share a little bit about that, Dr. Stein? Tell us what that means and let’s talk a bit about that.

Eleanor Stein, MD

So neuroplasticity, neuro means neurons and plastic means ability to change. So basically it’s our brain and our whole central nervous system. In fact, it’s constantly changing whether we are aware of it or not. That’s just how our central nervous system is built. So every time I think, feel or do anything like right now in this moment, I’m focusing on your face and I’m kind of trying to pull in all the things I might want to say. So those actions are firing a bunch of neurons and everything that fires together, wires together. So the more I fire certain groups of neurons in certain patterns, those neurons literally create new connections, new and stronger connections with each other, so that the next time I try to do the same thing, it’s going to be a tiny bit easier. So basically neuroplasticity is just a fancy word for learning. Say, I want to learn about FM, you know, for the people out there listening to this summit and you’re taking in new information and your concentrating neurons are firing and wiring. 

So now the next time you hear that information, maybe you’ll listen to hopefully several of the talks on the summit. And I’m sure there’s going to be a lot of overlap in what we have to say. So the next time you hear it, you’re going to go, Oh, yeah, yeah, I get it. You don’t have to work quite as hard. It’s going to be easier for you. So there’s studies that show, for example, people that are expert at something like expert musicians, they barely use any energy in their brain to do, you know, phenomenal music compared to a beginner who’s, like, efforting and, you know, firing all parts of the brain to try to learn this new skill. So the more we practice something we hardwire, it becomes easier and easier now. Sorry, just one more thing. Sorry to interrupt. 

That can work for us or against us. That’s a really important point because everyone’s like, Oh, neuroplasticity is awesome. I just have to learn it and everything’s going to be good. It’s a little bit more complicated because neuroplasticity, believe it or not, is the cause is the end cause of fibromyalgia. So there’s many, many triggers like stress, infection, physical trauma, many, many other. Yeah, inflammation. All these kind of maybe nutritional deficiencies, toxins, all these things that you’re going to hear about on the summit. Many of them are triggers. But in the end, the thing that actually causes the chronic pain, some people would say in 100% of cases is neuro plasticity, meaning the brain has learned pain. The beauty of this is that the brain can unlearn pain just in the same way that it learned it because it’s constantly plastic or able to change.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

So we have this habit that we get into. So certainly if you’re learning a language, this is kind of like explaining you learn a language learning Spanish.

Eleanor Stein, MD

Yeah.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

And in the beginning it’s Sinclair Bailey intimidating and you’re thinking, I can’t do this. But eventually you are wired so that you can actually now read in Spanish. Yeah. Now the problem though can become if you are in a Spanish club, think you’re in a Spanish class and it’s really French and no one ever told you how you learn this language. You associate it as Spanish and it’s really French. And this is what happens in this chronic pain is you get in this pattern, you’re locked in. You can’t break out of that. It is for you know, Zig Ziglar used to call it stinking thinking where you get in a certain this is the way you think. And every time your brain kicks in, whatever stimulates this, this thought, you can’t change it. It’s become a habit. Yeah, it’s become hardwired.

Eleanor Stein, MD

Yeah, I would agree with that. And I would add one additional point because now people listening might be going, Oh my gosh, are you saying it’s all my fault? I’m thinking wrong and neuroplasticity occurs at an unconscious level. Yeah. So it is absolutely not your fault and you’re not even aware it’s happening, but it’s perhaps 100% unconscious. However, the beauty and the hope lies that once you understand neuroplasticity and how to utilize it to your benefit, you can make those unconscious. You can become aware of those unconscious patterns and you can change them.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

So if your mindset helps determine your health, I have to ask this question because they were so somebody else was probably thinking this. Yeah, got me in that it’s all in their head because they’re told that, right? I mean, fibromyalgia, you told you either way, crazy or just depressed. You need the extra. I mean, they’re told all this silly stuff, right? But you’re not saying or we’re not saying that it’s all in your mind. We’re not saying that.

Eleanor Stein, MD

Absolutely. It’s in your brain. It’s not in your mind. So if mind by mind you mean you’re thinking wrong, you’re negative, you’re giving up. It’s not that directly. It’s the impact that what you think, feel and do has on the biology of your brain. So there are studies. For example, Alia Crum at Stanford has done phenomenal mind blowing research on mindset that if you, for example, it’s called the housekeepers study. If if housekeepers who work in hotels believe that they’re doing a lot of exercise because they have like a physical job, their health improves compared to the ones that think they’re not exercising because they’re too tired after work to go to the gym and it changes hormone levels. So things over which we have no conscious control whatsoever are unconsciously controlled. So that’s what neuroplasticity is about. We change the biology of our brain. We change the hormones that are being produced, the neurotransmitters, the peptides. We can literally change those things on purpose if we have the tools to do it.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

So the first thing is just being aware that this is an option, right? Yeah.

Eleanor Stein, MD

Absolutely.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Yeah. And then becoming comfortable with that and realizing that you can change the way you think, the way you think changes the way your body performs this this autonomic nervous system, the the self-regulating systems in the body are definitely under our control, whether we are thinking about it or not, whether we’re conscious of it or not, you can you share? And I was going to say, when you were describing was thinking, you know, this is an example of the placebo, right?

Eleanor Stein, MD

Absolutely.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Because you think about, you know, placebo in 70% of the cases with an antidepressant, a placebo sugar pill is as good as an antidepressant. I’m not not talking about a stop there.

Eleanor Stein, MD

Yeah, yeah.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

But I’m just saying that there’s this incredible power, this innate healing ability that we have inside of us. And if we can tap into it is mind blowing. Horrible, but it’s incredibly powerful.

Eleanor Stein, MD

So just to take that a step beyond that was a great idea about the placebo, because. That’s exactly right. And if we take it even beyond the antidepressant to something that people think is super by a biomedical like knee surgery, they’ve done similar studies where they give a sham knee surgery. They literally put a hole in the person’s knee. They put the scope in. They tell the person that they’ve cleaned up their knee or repaired a ligament or something like that. And those people report less pain and it’s lasting. It’s not just like for the next week, it’s like for the next year. Those people have good outcomes, but the people aren’t aware again, just to take it, I worry when we talk about neuroplasticity, people are going to blame others so it can be used by practitioners to blame patients for not getting better. Like, Oh, you’re just not thinking, well, it’s a really fairly it’s simple but difficult. Like the process is simple. 

Neuroplasticity is very straightforward, but it takes a lot of effort and determination over time to implement it effectively. But I have people, you know, using the strategies that I teach who are 100% better, who have no pain whatsoever. They’ve had migraines, they’ve had arthritis, they’ve had FM, they had TMJ like all different kinds of what we now call no plastic pain. So the International Association for the Study of Pain in 2016 came out with this new kind of terminology for pain types. And the new category called No Sea Plastic Pain is where fibromyalgia fits in, and it means no sea means noxious. It hurts, and plastic means the pain is caused by the brain.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Yeah. So we, you know, a lot of these individuals have had a very traumatic childhood and that can be dysfunctional household. It could be they had an illness, a surgery abuse, you know, for this physical or mental abuse. And they get under this stress. And as they go through life, they’ve kind of lost that plasticity, that ability to rebound from stress. They manage to do okay, but maybe something comes along. That’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back, the surgery or trauma or divorce or loss of a loved one. And that’s it. Then they started developing these symptoms that we would associate with fibromyalgia. And, you know, there’s no drug that gets you over that. I mean, it’s a that’s why I like your approach, where we have to realize that not only do you have to do some of the things that other people have talked about, changing your diet, maybe taking some nutraceuticals and fixing different hormonal issues, but also we need to retrain the brain.

Eleanor Stein, MD

You know, and I like what you said about it gets stuck, the brain gets stuck. So in psychiatry, we kind of have this very you know, it’s been shown very clearly that resilience equals flexibility. So whenever the brain gets stuck, you know, say you’re an athlete and you’re hitting the ball wrong and you’ve got that habit and you’ve been doing that for ten years, and now your coach is trying to teach you the new way to hit the ball. It’s a challenge, but it’s possible, right? You have to unlearn and then relearn. That’s neuroplasticity. So for people whose brain has gotten stuck in pain again, I just have to emphasize, through no fault of their own, it is possible to rewire it. And one of the key messages, one of the leading groups in the world on this is David Butler and Laura moore. Mostly they’re from Australia. They’re hilarious. So if you see some YouTube videos by them, you’re going to learn about neuroplasticity and you’re going to enjoy it. Amazing. And they teach that 100% of chronic pain is due to the brain and not due to tissue damage. So this is a really tough like I for sure thought there was something wrong with my tissues when every day I had this excruciating, exhausting pain, mostly in the large muscle groups like most people with AFM. And if you had tried to explain to me back then before the research was there to support it that way, there was nothing wrong with my tissues. I would think you were crazy. You obviously didn’t understand my situation, but the research is really, really strong that the pain itself is caused by the brain assessing that you’re in danger and creating pain to warn you. So pain, believe it or not, is actually something useful for people that don’t have the ability to feel pain, actually die young because they do stupid things because they don’t realize they’re dangerous.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

So one of the interviews that I had on here was all about the cell danger theory.

Eleanor Stein, MD

And I think.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

It just fits so well. I mean, you just see this thread that kind of runs through all these different talks. And this is one that certainly should resonate with anybody who is familiar with the cell danger theory. Do you think that. Well, let’s talk a little bit more about your approach. Can we talk a bit more about that? And then I want to ask you a few other questions about some of the other things that you recommend diet. And we’re talking about diet here. Yeah. Okay.

Eleanor Stein, MD

So basic that at its very essence to use neuroplasticity based approaches to rewire the brain, you have to become aware of what you think, feel and do and notice which of those experiences might be interpreted by your brain as danger. For example, you’re scheduled for surgery that might make your brain think something serious is going on. Say, every time you go to see your doctor, your doctor tells you have bone on bone arthritis and you know you’re going to end up in a wheelchair. You’re going to need a joint replacement. These are danger messages that your brain is understandably going to interpret like, okay, we’ve got a big problem here and there’s nothing that we can do. So it’s going to keep firing our pain signals to keep getting your attention. So the first step is to become aware the pain is caused by the brain. This is chronic. Well, all pain is caused by the brain, but of course, acute pain. You need that. You need to pay attention to that. You need to take your hand off the hot stove. Right. So we’re talking here chronic pain. The first step is to become aware that chronic pain is not an accurate reflection of what’s going on in your body and that you can get rid of the pain by rewiring your brain. Now, that already is a big ask of most people and takes some time and takes, you know, looking at some of the research to kind of become like for me, it took a while. I wasn’t are you kidding me? You know, it took me a couple of years of reading, reading tons of research before I went, oh, this is really true.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Yeah, yeah. You know, but I think that this model really explains what some of the times what we’re missing in lab work in that oftentimes we’re looking for information and we don’t see it yet. So we’re see that there C-reactive protein levels as negative said rates fine and I don’t see an autoimmune disease. We don’t see the inflammation in a lab test. So oftentimes doctors have, you know, they just think, well, it’s all in your head, which, you know, maybe it is a little bit in your brain. But they’re we’re looking for the smoking gun. We keep looking. We keep looking. Yeah. Some of these theories are now coming together, the research and the theories to really paint a better picture, really what’s going on with fibromyalgia patients.

Eleanor Stein, MD

And it really explains why, like you said earlier, the drugs, they’re bent, they’re useful. Band-Aids. I’ve prescribed many you know, I’m a physician. I prescribe lots of drugs in my day. There are useful Band-Aid, but they don’t solve solve the underlying problem. So surgery might be very useful. I’ve had some myself. It really helped. But it didn’t. Of course, there’s no surgery for fibromyalgia, which is like throughout the entire body. So the next step, after you become aware that when you experience pain, it’s not an indicator of tissue damage. The next step is to use every incident of pain as an opportunity to rewire your brain, to go, Oh, pain. Okay, what are my choices? And the choices are to do, think or feel something in that moment that will help you, that will elevate your mood and help you feel safe. 

Because when the brain feels safe, it turns down pain. It’s just that simple. There’s literally thousands of research studies showing this to be the case. So if I phone a friend who’s funny and sympathetic, if I do some creative, you know, maybe I’m a painter and I can get really lost in the process of my painting. Maybe I go for a walk in nature. Maybe I’ll just look at the bird feeder outside my back window. Say, for people that are less mobile, I could use my imagination. So many people in the field of neuroplasticity feel that imaginary activity is very powerful, especially because it’s available to everybody at all times. So if you wake up in the middle of the night, maybe you can’t go for a walk. Maybe none of your friends are awake. But you can always do something in your imagination. And you know, some people use things like meditations and visualizing. And in general, you want to pick something that’s going to elevate your mood and make you feel good. So you might imagine yourself doing the activity that you maybe have given up because of the EFM and you want to get back to. So in the moment of pain, making a decision not to worsen the habit by repeating the typical. So the typical things people with AFM do is they stop what they’re doing when they experience the pain, they retreat. They put heat on. So heat I’ve got some slides, you know, in my course about what are this? How do you know if your pain is no see plastic, right? This brain caused pain and there’s a whole bunch of indicators and one of them is if heat makes your pain feel better, which is universal and FM that’s not an inflammatory pain because inflammation feels better when you make it cold.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Yeah.

Eleanor Stein, MD

You know, and something that feels better when you make it hot, that is a clue right there that probably this brain approach might work for you.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Yeah. So really the first step is, number one, realizing that this is a different paradigm and having some acceptance or some curiosity. The next step for two to kind of learn more about this. And then the second one is to acknowledge what you’re feeling at the time when you’re having the pain. What is your thought process? Yeah, from there now you can start to have some options.

Eleanor Stein, MD

That’s totally right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Well, I want to before that a ton. So your program that you’ve put together also incorporates some other things. And one of those is diet, which I think is very, very important. And you like the paleo intense autoimmune diet now Zen from Dr.. What’s protocol or is that something you’ve created? I’m just curious that terminology.

Eleanor Stein, MD

Yeah, I know the paleo autoimmune I first learned about actually from one of my physician, my own physicians who’s integrative doctor and I saw him one day and he said, you know, check this out. So the book I read is by Karen Ballantine. It’s called The Paleo Approach. Yeah, it’s very dense. You know, it’s a big book not to be taken lightly, but I read the whole thing from cover to cover because she’s a scientist and she you know, I like research. I want to know that what I’m reading is true and not just someone’s opinion. And I started it right away. So it’s basically to avoid eating things that activate the immune system. You know, if many people are probably familiar with Dr. Gundry lectin hypothesis so that many plants, although they’re healthy for us, in some ways, they may activate our immune system. And even though in my own reading of the literature, it’s not clear to me that FM is an autoimmune disease. 

I know some people believe it, perhaps even some of the speakers on the summit and it’s possible, but I don’t know that, you know, the evidence is overwhelming nevertheless for some people, and I’m thankfully one of them, this paleo autoimmune approach really seems to make a difference. And every time I go off it, because it’s not the most fun diet in the world, it’s pretty restrictive. So every time I think, you know, I’m good, I’ve been healthy for years now. I could probably eat a few more things. Unfortunately, symptoms come back. So in brief, the paleo autoimmune is you can eat tons of vegetables of all types, all the animal proteins, the flesh, animal proteins and all fruit, except, you know, maybe some people have trouble with seeds like in Dr. Gundy’s work, but you have to avoid everything else and everything else means dairy, eggs, all grains, you know. So in North American diet, that’s like some people just start crying at that point and say they can’t do it. Oh, seeds and nuts and legumes. 

So it’s basically a diet of mostly vegetables, enough meat to get your enough fat and then, you know, not a ton of fruit, but enough to get all of your phytonutrients. And I’ve never pushed it very much in my practice because it’s so difficult and a lot of people just tell me it’s just not an option for them. But I would just say for me, when I stick to the diet, I feel almost perfect. I have excellent energy, good sleep, no pain. I can do whatever I want. And to me that’s worth it. But I know everyone has to make their own choices. And I there’s you know, I haven’t had thousands of people try it, so I can’t say for sure it’s going to work for everyone with AFM. But from my own experience I’m going to say it’s worth a try. Yeah. 

And for me it took over a year until I saw the benefit, so you have to try it for a pretty extended period. What’s really interesting is now many people are coming to this same diet, maybe under different terminology in different fields. So like you said, Terri Walls, who basically is promoting this kind of diet for people with M.S. There’s other research out there for people with other autoimmune diseases, thyroid disease, Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis. And then there’s Dr. Dale Bredeson, who’s using basically that same diet for people with Alzheimer’s. So it seems like it’s actually the real anti-inflammatory diet. And doesn’t matter what the cause of the inflammation is that diet could be helpful.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

I think again, it’s another thread that weaves it all together. I’ve had a tremendous amount of success in my practice. Initially, I would use an anti-inflammatory weight loss practice, which I still use, but not everybody with fibromyalgia is overweight. It used to be when I would look at a new patient questionnaire, I’d go, Oh, they’re £40 overweight, they’re going to do great. Is much faith in this diet. I knew if I could get them losing weight. Yeah, that’s where you store inflammatory chemicals and toxins and just, you know, just the success, them having a success, which they might not have had for a while. They were going to do great. 

They had less pain, more energy. But, you know, but then I had patients that may need to gain weight, right? So over the years I kind of changes around. But I really feel like the paleo diet model my very similar to that or some things I’ve changed and some nutraceuticals that I’ve used to help with it. But it’s the long game, you know, as you said, it took a year, but it’s something you can’t the only way to get over fibromyalgia, my opinion is to get healthy. And that’s a it’s a whole, whole body process. Your mind, your brain, your you know, everything, your biochemistry and diet. You can’t be healthy without a healthy diet.

Eleanor Stein, MD

You really get.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

That. And that means different things to different people. But that’s the long game that takes some time to show the positive, you know, the positive effects. What you’re sharing with this mind body connection and some of the exercises that you teach, as well as some of the nutraceuticals that you recommend. And I recommend. There can be days that can be, you know, pretty quick, much quicker than changes to your diet. Yeah, I’ll.

Eleanor Stein, MD

Just share one experience I had personally. So in 2014 I wanted to go to Africa. I had severe multiple chemical sensitivity. That was part of my big picture, you know, with the fatigue and the pain. And I thought, I’m going to die, you know, how am I going to make it to Africa with all the people in the smells and the planes and the hotels and everything? So I started myself on a neuroplasticity program, and within the first week my chemical sensitivity went away and it’s never come back. It and so what I’ve learned over the years of all the different kind of symptoms, pain and sensitivities, because really pain is a sensitivity, like we’re more sensitive to the signals coming from our body than we should be. So anything where the brain is overreacting will respond really well to this approach.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

You know what I want to chair where to find out more about this, because for some people their listening is going, Oh, either it’s weird and it’s but it’s fascinating and this is where we’re heading. We’re heading this way. And this is an incredible opportunity for the viewers to. Get some more information and see if this is something, you know, if it resonates with you, then, you know, it’s another option, you know, another option to put the puzzle together. So where’s the best website to go to to learn more about your my changes?

Eleanor Stein, MD

Eleanor Stein, MD dot DACA is for Canada, right? So I’m not adcom. Com and then slash pain is everything I’ve got like videos on there that answer some of the frequently asked questions and kind of give a bit of background to what neuroplasticity is and how the program works. So I would say that on my landing page, of course, there’s a link to that page, but you can go straight there by just doing Eleanor Stein, MD dot K forward slash pain.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Well, this has been fascinating. I mean, we had a few minutes to speak before we started recording and I’ll share with you that this is a lot talked about, but not enough. I mean, I have a chapter I have two chapters on some of this material, but I think that we’re getting into another dimension in that we really are putting more importance on this because we’re open minded to it. But the research is overwhelming. It’s invalidating this, and if we can just have an open mind and put it into play, if you’re at some of our match or your physician watching this, being open minded to learn more about this, or you can start sharing it with your patients.

Eleanor Stein, MD

Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Thank you so much. Thank you for being part of the summit.

Eleanor Stein, MD

You’re welcome.