In our 8th episode, Living Well With NMOSD, the Importance of managing pain and its impact on mental health; Lelainia sits down with Dr Reebye, a Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation specialist at the University of British Columbia Multiple Sclerosis and Neuromyelitis Optica Clinic and an attending physician at GF Strong Rehabilitation Center in Vancouver. Dr. Reebye explains the nuances of pain in NMO, the ways that it can affect our mental health & wellbeing and how patients and their care teams can work together to manage pain and reduce its impact on our lives. He helps us understand what a physiatrist is and why is it important to have a physiatrist on our care team. And he describes who else can work with to help patients with NMOSD. He explains what types of complementary therapies he uses with his patients and why. Dr. Reebye shares what types of pain issues NMO patients typically experience (spasticity, neuropathy, etc.) He illustrates how and why the pain in NMO patients experience is different from the kind of pain a healthy person might experience. And he reveals the most challenging aspects of helping NMO patients who live with chronic pain. Dr. Reebye also describes how pain impact our mental health. He explains how NMO patients struggle with being able to get a good night’s rest because of the pain they experience. And how lack of sleep affects pain levels and he provides tips of what can we do to improve our sleep. And Dr. Reebye shares what’s one thing he wishes all NMO patients knew about living with pain. Our Guests: Dr. Rajiv Reebye is a Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PMR) specialist and Clinical Associate Professor in the department of Medicine at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Vancouver, Canada. Dr. Reebye is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Canada (FRCPC) and holds a specialist certificate in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. He is the chair of the competency committee for the UBC pain fellowship program at UBC. He is an attending physician on the inpatient neuro-musculoskeletal program (NMS) and on the outpatient acquired brain injury and NMS programs at GF Strong Rehabilitation Center, Vancouver, Canada. He is a consulting physician at the UBC Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and Neuromyelitis Optica (NMO) Clinic since 2007. He works closely with his neurology colleagues in helping maximize the abilities of patients with MS and NMO in his clinics at UBC, GF Strong Rehabilitation Centre and his community New Westminster rehabilitation clinic. His special clinical interests include treatment of neuropathic pain and spasticity, as well as neuro-rehabilitation. Dr. Reebye is the director of the New Westminster Rehabilitation Medicine spasticity clinic - a community-based spasticity clinic focusing on the treatment of patients with adult spasticity including patients with MS and NMO. His research and teaching interests include neuropathic pain management, neuro-rehabilitation, adjunctive therapy post botulinum toxin injections for spasticity and use of ultrasound to assess muscle changes post spasticity and for injection of botulinum toxin for the treatment of spasticity. Dr. Reebye enjoys clinical teaching and was awarded the Patricia Clugston Award for Excellence in teaching and the Duncan Murray excellence in teaching award from the UBC division of PMR. He was also recently awarded the 2021 UBC Faculty of Medicine Continuing Professional Development award. Recommended resources available: Pain BC https://painbc.ca/ People in Pain Network https://www.pipain.com/ Solutions for Kids in Pain (SKIP) https://kidsinpain.ca/ Please visit https://nmosd.ca/ for more information on what NMOSD is, how it affects the body, tips for daily life and how to discuss it with your doctor.
