• 703-532-4892
  • New Patients
  • Patient Portal
  • Conditions
    • Long-COVID Syndrome
    • Celiac Disease & Gluten Intolerance
    • Lyme Disease
    • Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO)
    • Fibromyalgia
    • Heavy Metal Toxicity
    • Hormonal Imbalances
    • Mold Toxicity
    • Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
    • Neurotoxicity
    • Thyroid Disorders
    • All Conditions
  • Services
    • Long-COVID Recovery Services
    • Acupuncture
    • Detoxification Protocol
    • Herbal Remedies & Nutritional Supplements
    • Hormone Replacement Therapy
    • IV Therapy
    • Niagen+ (NR) IV Therapy
    • Nutritional Testing, Counseling & Coaching
    • Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine
    • Physical Therapy
    • Psychotherapy, EMDR & Guided Meditation
    • Telemedicine
    • All Treatments
  • Providers
    • Gary Kaplan
    • Lisa Lilienfield
    • Rebecca Berkson
    • Jeanne Scheele
    • Patricia Alomar
    • Jessica Briscoe Coleman
    • Jodi Brayton
    • Chardonée Donald
    • Nidhi Reva
    • Laura Elizabeth Dorsett
    • All Providers
  • About
    • Why Kaplan Center?
    • Integrative Medicine
    • Dr. Gary Membership
    • Our Support Team
    • Financial FAQs
    • Provider Fees
    • Our Goal
    • Patient Testimonials
  • Resources
    • Health & Wellness Blog
    • Events
    • Featured Press
    • Videos
    • Featured Interviews and Podcasts
    • Books
    • eBooks
    • Professional Resources
    • Research
  • Store
  • Contact
  • 703-532-4892
  • Click to open the search input field Click to open the search input field Search
  • Menu Menu

Tag Archive for: trauma

Posts

Healing therapies for PTSD

Moving Beyond Trauma: Healing Therapies for PTSD

June 21, 2023/in Mental Health, Treatments/by Kaplan Center

According to the U.S. Department of Veteran’s Affairs, it is estimated that approximately 6% of the population will experience Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) at some point in their lives. By some estimates, that percentage more than doubles for people who have been exposed to a traumatic event.

To be diagnosed with PTSD one must meet a specific set of criteria which includes:

  • exposure to a traumatic stressor;
  • a re-experiencing of symptoms (physical and/or emotional);
  • avoidance behavior and emotional numbness;
  • hyperarousal;
  • symptom duration of at least one month; and
  • significant distress or impairment of functioning.

How does one move beyond this emotional pain, or provide support to the most vulnerable population, our children? The following 3 therapies have shown to be effective in treating PTSD in clinical settings for both adults and children.

Family or Couples Therapy

PTSD is a family illness. Family members often experience feelings of guilt, sadness, and isolation when a loved one is suffering. A safe setting where emotions, fears, and concerns can be communicated under the guidance of a therapist can help strengthen relationships and promote group healing during difficult times.

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR)

MBSR is a program that uses meditation, breathing techniques, and movement, such as yoga, to bring awareness to the present moment, without judgment. There is a growing body of medical research that shows that a mindfulness-based meditation practice can help people bounce back after highly stressful situations.

  • A 2015 study reported that veterans suffering from PTSD who participated in a mindfulness-based stress reduction program for a period of 8 weeks, reported a decrease in symptom severity.
  • A 2018 review confirmed that mindfulness-bases therapies are “effective in reducing PTSD symptomatology” and indicated that additional studies should be done to investigate its role as a first line treatment.
  • Children can also benefit from the practice. This 2017 review of research concluded that “high-quality, structured mindfulness interventions improve mental, behavioral, and physical outcomes in youth.”

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy

EMDR is an integrative psychotherapy that has proven highly effective for the treatment of trauma. Traumatic memories are memories that tend to be “frozen in time” and each time they are triggered a person may re-experience the same disturbing sights, sounds, smells, feelings, and sensations suffered during the original event. Traumatic memories have a long-lasting impact because they change core beliefs that we hold about ourselves and the world around us.

EMDR helps the brain adaptively process traumatic information by replicating what naturally happens during dreaming or REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. During EMDR therapy, a person is asked to bring a difficult thought or memory to mind, holding it in awareness, while also following the therapist’s hand movements across the field of vision, mimicking the biological process of REM sleep. Over time, though an event may remain as a bad memory, it eventually ceases to be a physiological stressor, because the person has learned to experience disturbing events or memories in a new and less distressing way.

Left unresolved, PTSD can be devastating, but with appropriate support, there are ways to move beyond the pain. If you or a loved one may be affected, please seek help – no one needs to suffer alone.

Additional Resources:

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline –24-hour hotline for anyone in emotional distress: 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) – Helpline: 1-800-950-NAMI (6264)
TRE® – Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercise methods by Dr. David Berceli
Veterans Crisis Line –  For veterans and their families and friends: 1-800-273-8255

We are here for you, and we want to help.

Our goal is to return you to optimal health as soon as possible. To schedule an appointment please call: 703-532-4892 x2

This article was published in May 2017. It was reviewed and updated in June 2023.

 

What I Know About Healing Chronic Pain From 37 Years Of Treating Patients

October 25, 2022/in Long Covid, Wellness/by Gary Kaplan, DO

There are over 50 million adults in the United States living with some form of chronic pain. The impact of chronic pain on people’s lives is enormous; unfortunately, despite modern medical advances we’re still not that great at treating it.

We may be unsuccessful in treating chronic pain because the way we’ve thought about where it comes from is all wrong. Research demonstrates that chronic pain is frequently a symptom of inflammation in the brain. Finding a cure requires that we identify and treat all the things that are causing the brain to remain in an inflamed state.

Here are seven things you need to do to effectively to deal with your chronic pain:

  1. Get a real diagnosis.

Chronic pain, in and of itself, is not a diagnosis. It’s a symptom of injury or illness, and even more specifically, it’s a symptom of inflammation. For example, over the course of 37 years of practicing family medicine and treating patients suffering from chronic pain, the worst case of acute shoulder pain I have ever seen was in a man who was having a heart attack.

I also have seen patients complain of chronic lower back pain, when their underlying problem was actually Crohn’s disease (an autoimmune disease that causes digestive problems).

Similarly, chronic migraine headaches may be a symptom of a food allergy. When this is the case, eliminating the offending foods can be a straightforward solution.

Today, we are seeing more and more people experiencing pain symptoms as a result of a previous COVID-19 infection. Long-COVID Syndrome symptoms often mimic the pain symptoms of fibromyalgia, ME/CFS and POTS.

Getting the right diagnosis requires a comprehensive history by a physician who can connect the dots. Frequently, what you think is the beginning of your pain problem is not its actually cause.

Bottom line: you must know what to treat if you have any hope of finding a cure.

  1. Get tested for sleep disorders and get enough rest.

If you’re getting seven or more hours of sleep per night, but you still feel exhausted all the time, you may have sleep apnea. Sleep apnea is a condition that means that while you’re sleeping you periodically stop breathing. During these intervals, your brain is deprived of oxygen, which causes inflammation of the neural tissue in the brain. Sleep apnea affects approximately 5% of Americans and it has been estimated that as many as 85% of people with this condition have not been diagnosed.

The inflammation caused by sleep apnea can cause or contribute to joint pain, migraine headaches, abdominal pain, and other chronic pain conditions. Ask your doctor about getting tested for sleep apnea or other sleep disorders. Sleep well and you’ll find you have more energy and less pain.

  1. Eat an anti-inflammatory diet.

To eliminate the dietary causes of chronic pain, I usually recommend that patients limit their food intake to rice, fish, chicken, and fresh fruits and vegetables for a period of six weeks. While this food plan doesn’t eliminate every possible allergen, it does eliminate the major offenders, such as gluten, milk and milk products, refined sugar, processed foods, nuts and eggs.

When you eat, notice if certain foods cause you to experience an adverse reaction such as a stuffy nose, fatigue, headache, bloating, or gas. By eliminating the foods that create inflammation in your brain and body, you’ll find that your pain decreases and your physical energy and mental clarity increase.

  1. Meditate.

Studies show that regular meditation improves brain function and can help the brain recover from inflammatory damage. Regular meditation also has been shown to improve our ability to tolerate and recover from stress. Meditate for 20 to 30 minutes a day and see if you notice a difference.

  1. Make time for manual therapy.

Hands-on therapies such as Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine (OMM), physical therapy, massage, and chiropractic therapy can help relieve, and in some cases, completely resolve chronic musculoskeletal pain.

Whatever the pain’s origin — whether its disease, traumatic injury or overuse, or emotional stress — bodywork can help stimulate healthy blood flow into damaged muscles, tendons, and connective tissue, thereby relieving musculoskeletal pain and tension and stimulating the body’s own ability to heal itself.

In fact, manual therapy is so effective in unlocking the emotional stress and trauma stored in our bodies that I often also recommend working with a psychotherapist who can help you process these issues.

  1. Take nutritional supplements that are right for you.

There are supplements on the market that can help address generalized inflammation and joint pain. Supplements are also a great way to strengthen your immune system and help keep you healthy. However, before you start taking any new product, make sure you are buying from a trusted supplier; the U.S. Food & Drug Administration does not regulate the manufacture and marketing of supplements as they do with prescription medication.

Talk with your doctor about the medications and other supplements you are already taking before starting a new supplement because some products can cause drug interactions. 

  1. Practice gratitude.

Although this is sometimes a lot to ask of people whose lives have been devastated by chronic pain, the cultivation of gratitude for family and friends and the other gifts in our lives helps make us more trusting, altruistic, resilient, and just plain happier. It also allows us to live each day more fully.

I recommend keeping a gratitude diary and listing five things for which you are grateful each day. Other gratitude exercises include visualizing and writing about your future, best possible self; putting your gratitude into action by writing a thank-you note or visiting a person to whom you owe a debt of gratitude. Spending time each day contemplating the things for which you are grateful is likely to help reduce not only your stress level but also your experience of physical pain.

Good luck on your healing journey!

We are here for you, and we want to help.

Our goal is to return you to optimal health as soon as possible. To schedule an appointment please call: 703-532-4892 x2

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Resources

  • Health & Wellness Blog
  • Events
  • Featured Press
  • Featured Interviews and Podcasts
  • Videos
  • Books
  • eBooks
  • Professional Resources
  • Research

Do you have questions about The Kaplan Center for Integrative Medicine?
Call Us Today!

703-532-4892, Ext. 2

Subscribe

Are you looking to improve your overall wellness?

Contact Us Today

Personalized care you can trust.

Our integrative, non-surgical treatment approach is highly successful in maintaining wellness and also treating chronic pain and illness. For more than 30 years, we have delivered superior, cutting-edge health care in the Washington, DC area.

QuickLinks

  • Integrative Medicine – McLean, VA – Kaplan Center
  • Conditions
  • Providers
  • Services
  • About
  • Resources
  • Store
  • Contact

Contact Information

Tel: 703-532-4892
Fax: 703-237-3105

6829 Elm Street, Suite 300
McLean, Virginia 22101
Map It

Hours of Operation
Mon – Thu : 8 am – 5 pm, ET
Fri : 8 am – 12 pm, ET

Copyright 2025 The Kaplan Center. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy | Patient Portal | The Foundation for Total Recovery
  • Link to Facebook
  • Link to X
  • Link to Youtube
  • Link to LinkedIn
  • Link to Instagram
Scroll to top Scroll to top Scroll to top