Ask the Doctor

2011-07-14

Ask the Doctor: Old, Tough and in Chronic Pain

I often see a neighbor of mine who is an older man chopping wood, carrying sizeable boulders, taking care of his large yard (his lawn looks velvety, exactly like the green you would see at a golf c ...
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2011-06-10

Ask the Doctor: Pain Is Everywhere I Go

June 10th 2011: This paper about human pain. During my trip to Greece with a delegation of prominent Canadians accompanying the Prime Minister, people quickly found out that I was a pain doctor. Ev ...
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2011-06-09

Dr. Mailis Goes to Greece with the PM

A couple of weeks ago I received an unexpected phone call from the Prime Minister's office. Steven Harper intended to visit Greece (where I was born) after his G8/20 trip to France and wanted a ver ...
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2011-04-29

Women and Pelvic Pain: A Big Pain Problem Below the Waist

Chronic or cyclical pelvic pain in women is a very big health issue. Most data come from large studies in the USA. It is estimated (Wesselman, U., "Management of chronic pelvic pain", in: Aronoff, ...
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2011-04-15

Pain, Psychology and Culture: How Our Ethnic Origin and Culture Affect Perception and Expression of Pain

Canada is a multicultural nation. Ten years ago the percentage of foreign born in Canada was 18% (although it varied widely per province, city, urban and rural areas). Just to illustrate the point: ...
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2011-03-11

Chronic Pain, Mind and Emotions

As science has progressed over the last few years, we have come to understand that the old dictum of separating mind from body is ineffective when it comes to chronic pain. This way of thinking abo ...
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2011-02-24

Understanding Why People Feel Pain Differently: Disease versus Illness

So far, I have discussed a number of pain syndromes (some of which are more prevalent in men and others in women) as well as ways to block the associated pain. I have also often discussed the signi ...
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2011-02-11

A Most Common Affliction: Lower Back Pain and Surgery, Part III

In the previous columns we discussed episodic and chronic lower back pain (LBP) treated with non surgical means. I also briefly mentioned injections. The common name for them is "nerve blocks"; in ...
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2011-01-26

A Most Common Affliction: Lower Back Pain, Part II

One of the most important questions I ask the patients who come to see me with Lower Back Pain (LBP) is: "What do you think is wrong with you?" Many patients will respond with statements like these ...
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2010-12-23

A Most Common Affliction: Lower Back Pain, Part I

Pain from the lower part of our bony spine is known as Low Back Pain (LBP). In the CARP survey we ran a couple of months ago (for more details on this see my past column, Too many people hurt) , 21 ...
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2010-11-25

Pain of the Heart

I would like to share with you some unique perspectives on a number of chronic pain syndromes.

Tom was 68 years old when he started having chest pains. His family doctor suspected "angina" ...
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2010-11-12

History in the Making

On Monday, November 1, 2010, I participated in Chronic Pain Awareness Day at the Ontario Legislature. Chronic Pain Awareness Day was organized by ACTION Ontario, the not-for-profit organization tha ...
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2010-10-07

The Hurt in Numbers

I discussed the data from the CARP poll in regards to chronic pain in the last newsletter. Many of the numbers were shocking. But the CARP survey results were not a fluke. In May of 2009 the Canadi ...
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2010-09-23

Too Many People Hurt

In the previous columns I had presented examples of blatant problems with our system of pain care in Ontario (I can only talk about the system I live and practice in) and what has been called the " ...
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2010-09-09

The Opioid Public Health Crisis in Ontario

On August 17, 2010, the Ontario Minister of Health and Long-Term Care made an announcement in London, Ontario about actions the McGuinty government will take to curb the problem of inappropriate us ...
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2010-09-07

The Long Winding Road to Pain Diagnosis and Treatment

During the summer of 2009 I was invited to give a talk to the convention of ASAP (short for American Syringomyelia and Chiari Alliance Project) in Madison, Wisconsin. Syringomyelia is a debilitatin ...
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2010-08-20

I Can't Talk but I Can Feel

I view my work with CARP Advocacy as public education. Over the past year I have shared with you scientific facts on numerous pain related conditions, as well as information about what works and wh ...
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2010-08-06

Blocking Pain, Part VI: Riding with the wind

In my previous papers I tried to uncover the scientific basis of several "pain blocking" techniques. We talked about imagery, use of counter-irritation techniques, changing brain waves, blocking th ...
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2010-07-22

Blocking Pain, Part V: The power of placebo

How many times have you heard of special treatments on the radio and TV that promise miracles for your back pain or other pains? Actually, you may know people who have tried them and swear by them, ...
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2010-07-12

Blocking Pain, Part IV: Putting the mind "to sleep"

In the previous papers we had discussed how the appearance of slow (theta) waves in the brains of fakirs and hook hangers blocks pain. Experienced yogis who practice transcendental meditation, have ...
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2010-06-21

Blocking Pain, Part III: Piercing the flesh

While we know that fire walking does not necessitate a special state of mind, there is no question that there is a lot more out there that our conventional western way of thinking cannot explain. H ...
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2010-06-06

Blocking Pain, Part II: The mystery of walking on fire

I am continuing my path to explore "altered states of consciousness" and the way they can "block pain".

In some parts of the world, people are sometimes submitted to intense trauma, but the ...
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2010-05-14

Blocking Pain, Part I

In this paper and a few that will follow I plan to address a subject that is dear to my heart but very little understood in western medicine. I will examine how "a change in our mind" can affect or ...
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2010-04-25

Chronic Pelvic Pain Syndrome in Men, Part II

In this article I will continue to address CPPS, a serious and disabling problem that affects many men, with the second part of my article.

Physical examination is usually normal or shows n ...
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2010-04-12

Chronic Pelvic Pain Syndrome in Men, Part I

As promised, men will not be forgotten. Since the purpose of my articles is to provide public education and bring to the forefront important pain-related issues, today's topic is a very large one t ...
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2010-03-25

Ask the Doctor: kids have pain too!

This is another article on pain endured by "special populations". So far we talked about pain in older individuals, and pain in women. In 2005, the International Organization for the Study of Pain ...
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2010-02-23

Ask the Doctor: How Men and Women Experience Pain Differently

In this column and a few more future columns I will tackle special populations and groups and the different ways in which they relate to pain. I will start by talking the different ways men and wom ...
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2010-01-26

Understanding Fibromyalgia, Part II

In this article I will continue to discuss topics related to Fibromyalgia (FM), summarized from the Drs Williams and Clauw paper, I referred to in the previous article.

Other factors operating ...
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2010-01-12