After Marty Huggins fractured her
lower back four years ago, she says
she spent “two years lying on a fuzzy
brown sofa in our family room. I was
afraid I would hurt my back if I moved
even a little.” The pain forced the
65-year-old from Stafford, Virginia, to
retire from her job as a physical edu-
cation teacher and competitive jump
rope coach, and she stopped going
to the gym completely. But despite
countless visits to specialists, who per-
formed tons of tests, gave her dozens
of steroid shots, and regularly offeredher opioid pain
relievers, nothing
helped.
What did it
take for Huggins
to finally tame
her pain? She
changed her
brain.
She started by
researching pain-
management
programs and
ultimately found
the Chronic Pain
Rehabilitation
Program at the
Cleveland Clinic, which was near
the home of one of her daughters.
Huggins enrolled in several classes
on how the brain and body interact.
She learned how to relax with mind-
fulness meditation and to tame her
fear and anxiety about her back pain
with cognitive behavioral therapy
(CBT). She also discovered the impor-
tance of good sleep and overcame her
hesitation to start exercising again.
Huggins even began taking an antide-
pressant, not because she was clinically
depressed but because the medication
helped turn down the volume on the
pain messages sizzling through her
nervous system.
“Now I hike Shenandoah Mountain.
I go boating and fishing on the Po-
tomac River with my husband and our
grandchildren,” she says. “You really
can calm your body down and change70 april 2020