New age snake oil.
This is how biofeedback was described to me, this is the FAQ from the Mayo Clinic on what biofeedback is and does, and I do love how it says under the reasons it may appeal to people, It may decrease your medical costs.
Sure, at $35 a pop, I can totally see it decreasing my medical costs! My doctor co-pay for each visit is $17.65, so uh, yeah, that's definitely helping lower my medical costs! /sarcasm
The basic premise of biofeedback is this,
Once you begin to recognize that your headache is a result of tense muscles, the next step is to learn how to invoke positive physical changes in your body, such as relaxing those specific muscles, when your body is physically or mentally stressed. Your eventual goal will be to produce these responses on your own, outside the therapist's office and without the help of technology.
Maybe it's just me, but I think most people know when they are stressed out and have, for example, a headache, and how to relieve that stress and attempt to soothe the headache away.
Ya know, swallow down about 8 Tylenol and lay down for a little while.
I think what bothered me the most, and what reader Chris also mentioned, was that she didn't know my medical history at all, she didn't even know my name, and her approach, was a one treatment fits all perspective.
If she had bothered to ask my doctor for my file, he would have given it to her or at least clued her in to what my problem was, seeing as he's the one who recommended I try this, she would have known that getting down into that beanbag chair was going to be an issue, and the raw nerve feelings I have in my back are well documented in my file, so the "soothing" vibrations from music being pumped through that thing would have sent me over the edge with pain.
And that bean bag chair that she called specifically, a biofeedback therapy device, isn't even something I can find when doing a Google search.
I Googled biofeedback bean bag chair, biofeedback bean bag therapy chair, biofeedback music playing bean bag chair, and I can't find a god damn thing about it, nor is it mentioned on any of the pages about biofeedback
Heck, I can't even find it just using the term "music playing bean bag chair", so uh, yeah.
To me, biofeedback is another new age snake oil.
People in pain will try it because they are desperate for pain relief, and this kind of crap with it's little heart devices, and breathing devices, books, cds, and dvds to watch and meditate with, are just another way to empty the pockets of people desperate to be free from pain.
And just like most other new age cures, it relies on people to have a need for a belief in a higher power, and since most people do, most people will believe that this kind of crap works.
It doesn't have any real basis in science other than the devices which monitor breathing and heart rate, the whole idea behind it is to learn how to slow your breathing and heart rate down through meditation, and to use positive thinking to relive pain.
And as for prayer, a huge study was done, and it was found that prayer had no positive effect on patients.
1,802 patients at six hospitals who received coronary bypass surgery, were broken into three groups. Two were prayed for; the third was not. Half the patients who received the prayers were told that they were being prayed for; half were told that they might or might not receive prayers.
Analyzing complications in the 30 days after the operations, the researchers found no differences between those patients who were prayed for and those who were not.
The power of prayer and positive thought made absolutely no difference at all.
So yes, I was offended that this "therapist" went there.
I really was under the assumption that biofeedback was a scientifically proven treatment, and it's not.
It's an alternative therapy, a mind over matter, use your thoughts and will, to heal your own body approach that doesn't always work, and scientists can't even explain how or why it works for some people.
Sorry, but after all these years dealing with my spine issues, I prefer to stay to tried and true scientifically proven methods of treatment, not the hoaky poaky.
