CLEVELAND — Carrie Boland has no trouble keeping up when she takes her dog, Rosie, out for walks, but that wasn’t the case seven years ago.

What You Need To Know

  • A northeast Ohio woman discovered mind-body therapy to heal pain in her ankle

  • Mind-body pain experience is the idea that the brain can alter what goes on in the body

  • Mind-body therapy can prevent having to take pain meds

“I started getting this horrific pain in the right side of the inner part of my ankle,” Boland said.

Boland had always enjoyed running and playing tennis, but even walking her kids to school became challenging.

“It just escalated to a 10 out of 10, almost to the point where I couldn’t walk,” she said.

Boland saw a doctor who diagnosed her with an inflamed tibial tendon. She was ordered to wear a boot and stay off her feet for six weeks. She was told the pain would go away.

“I ended up going back to make sure it’d healed, and he said he didn’t see anything wrong with it, but I still had this aching pain,” Boland said.

A good friend recommended she see Dr. Dan Ratner, a clinical psychologist and mind-body pain specialist.

“Mind-body pain experience is simply the idea that the brain can alter what goes on in the body. We have lots of everyday sensations like that like crying and blushing, but when, if it gets out of control, it can lead to chronic pain and all kinds of other symptoms,” he said.

Boland said she was skeptical at first. 

“I’m such a fact, logical person. I needed the data. I needed the research,” Boland said.

“It’s really important that we make this distinction, that it’s not in your head. It’s not made up. It is from your head, but it becomes real in the body,” Ratner said.

“He had said that sometimes when we get injured, the body tries to heal itself, and once it heals, the mind still thinks that there’s injury there,” Boland said.

Ratner said the mind-body connection isn’t something new.

“This is something we’ve known about for centuries, millennia. In most cultures, they know about how the mind affects the body. What’s more recent is that imaging techniques make us think structurally all the time when that’s actually not usually what’s going on,” Ratner said.

Ratner recommended Boland tell herself that she was no longer injured and that she shouldn’t be in pain

“I started telling myself, ‘Stop feeling this pain. You have the proof it’s not injury anymore. Stop telling yourself that you’re hurt.’ I did it for a couple days and I kid you not. The pain went away,” Boland said.

Besides being pain free, Boland has also been able to stay off pain medications.

“I was taking about eight Advil a day. That was the prescription, almost becoming an issue with my stomach,” Boland said.

She said she’s back to doing the things she loves.

“Not running as much as I should these days, however, I’m back,” she said.