Dr. Robert Kachko

Progressive Muscle Relaxation can be a useful tool to accomplish two goals:

Helping the muscles of the body to release tension, which can directly reduce physical pain

1. Helping us come back into the experience of sensations in our bodies, which can help the brain to s...

We’ve spent much of this series discussing things that are mostly within our control: nutrition, mindset, participation in our healing etc. It turns out that for many of the common chronic pain conditions (like #migraine and chronic low back pain), 50% of your pain may...

Our bodies and brains are complex, and each of us is impacted by pain in our own unique way. However, we ALL experience pain at two (actually, more, but let’s say two for purposes of clarity here :-)) distinct levels: sensory and affective. Our sensory perception of pa...

When it comes to our experience of pain, as with all things, context matters! If you’ve been following along with previous posts, you know by now that the MEANING we ascribe to the pain we are feeling is often more powerful in determining how we feel than the cause or...

Mindfulness meditation is all the rage these days. Proposed as a cure-all for everything from anxiety to pain, it’s rare to find someone who HASN’T heard that it is important to be mindful. The thing is, though, that there is no single fix for chronic pain. Techniques...

Depression (and anxiety, among a host of other psychosocial factors) contribute to chronic pain. In fact, in one study in the journal PAIN, 60.8% of people dealing with long-term pain met criteria for depression (PMID: 26963849). Why might this be? 

Emotional dis...

Thanks to it’s high supply of Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids, fish oil is one of the best anti-inflammatory substances we have. Given that almost all chronic pain (and all chronic disease for that matter) has at its root some degree of inflammation, it’s no surprise that...

Sleep: the ultimate reset switch. We’ve got tons of research about just how important sleep is to our long-term health and well-being. It turns out that between 67% and 88% of people who deal with long-term pain also have trouble sleeping well. Poor sleep, in this way,...

According to the CDC, 20 Million Americans deal with “high impact” chronic pain on a daily basis. This means it impacts their quality of life regularly - limiting the ability to work or sometimes even take care of themselves. To make matters worse, we’ve got an opioid...

Dealing with chronic pain is a tremendous (and all too common) challenge. Doing so alone is even more difficult. Research shows that a comprehensive approach that considers multiple components of wellness is essential to a pain-free life. In order for pain treatment to...