Chronic Back Pain Specialist Rockingham NC
Rheumatology
Internal Medicine, Rheumatology
Gender
Female
Education
Medical School: Osmania Med Coll, Univ Hlth Sci, Vijayawada, Hyderabad, Ap, India
Graduation Year: 1979
Internal Medicine, Rheumatology
Internal Medicine, Rheumatology
Gender
Male
Education
Medical School: Univ Wurzburg, Med Fak, Wurzburg, Germany (407-20 Pr 1/71)
Graduation Year: 1976
Hospital
Hospital: Presbyterian Hospital, Charlotte, Nc; Carolinas Med Ctr For Mental H, Charlotte, Nc
Group Practice: Mecklenburg Medical Group Inc
Rheumatology
Internal Medicine, Rheumatology
Gender
Female
Education
Medical School: Wright State Univ Sch Of Med, Dayton Oh 45401
Graduation Year: 1981
Rheumatology
Internal Medicine, Rheumatology
Gender
Male
Education
Medical School: East Carolina Univ Sch Of Med, Greenville Nc 27858
Graduation Year: 1988
Internal Medicine, Rheumatology
Internal Medicine, Rheumatology
Gender
Male
Education
Medical School: Yale Univ Sch Of Med, New Haven Ct 06510
Graduation Year: 1989
Chronic Back Pain
Provided by: 
Pain and anger seem to go hand in hand. Clinical research has shown that chronic low-back pain sufferers tend to have high levels of anger and that anger exacerbates the experience of pain. Now an innovative pilot study shows that loving-kindness meditation—a Buddhist technique for fostering love and transforming anger into compassion—can help reverse the cycle.
“Basically we broke new ground in investigating a method that a lot of people have been using for thousands of years to see if it works for an average person with chronic back pain,” says Jim Carson, PhD, of the Duke University Medical Center and the study’s lead author.
The study tested an eight-week loving-kindness program for chronic low-back pain patients, who were randomly assigned to conventional care or the meditation intervention. The patients who used loving-kindness techniques showed significant improvements in their pain and psychological distress levels that correlated to the time spent practicing the meditation on any given day.
“I was somewhat surprised by how people, once they started using the methods, reported changes in their life and relationships,” Carson says. Who knows, showing a little bit of kindness and compassion may be the ultimate form of pain relief.
—Elizabeth Marglin
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