Migraines & Pain Reprocessing Therapy: Hope for Lasting Relief
Migraines can feel overwhelming—sharp pain, light sensitivity, and a never-ending hunt for real solutions. If you’re like many people who’ve tried everything from medications to lifestyle tweaks with little success, Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT) might be the fresh approach you’re looking for. Let’s take a friendly walk through what PRT is and how it’s being used to tackle even stubborn migraine pain.
What Is Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT)?
PRT is a mind-body, neuroscience-based therapy that empowers people to change how their brains process pain. Pain, especially chronic pain like migraines, is often maintained by learned threat associations in the brain—even when there’s no ongoing physical damage. In short, the brain gets “stuck” in pain mode. PRT aims to help your brain break that cycle by teaching it to recognize pain as a false alarm, rather than an ongoing threat.
PRT doesn’t just help with migraines—research shows it can be a game-changer for chronic back pain, neck pain, fibromyalgia, and more. Excitingly, recent case studies reveal major reductions in migraine frequency and intensity after PRT, even for patients who didn’t respond to conventional treatments.
Why Might Migraines Respond to PRT?
Migraine brains are sensitive. After just a few intense attacks, your brain can become “sensitized,” triggering more attacks and ramping up pain perception. This sensitization is a form of neuroplasticity—learned pain. The good news: if pain can be learned, it can be unlearned. That’s exactly what PRT focuses on—retraining your brain out of this painful loop.
The Five Steps of PRT for Migraines
Here’s how a typical PRT journey might look for someone with migraines, broken down into core steps:
1. Education About Pain
We start by diving into the neuroscience of migraine pain. You’ll learn how pain is generated in the brain, why sensitization happens, and how this is different from physical injury. Understanding that migraines can be “false alarms” helps strip away some of the fear and confusion around chronic pain.
2. Gathering Evidence for a Brain-Based Cause
Next, we collaboratively investigate your personal migraine patterns. Are there times when pain arises with no clear injury or trigger? When does it ebb and flow? Collecting real-life evidence that supports a brain-based (not injury-based) origin increases your confidence in PRT’s approach—and your ability to recover.
3. Somatic Tracking
This is a core technique in PRT. Rather than fighting or fearing your pain, you’ll learn to pay gentle, nonjudgmental attention to the sensations of migraine. Through mindful body scanning, relaxed observation, and guided imagery, you gradually retrain your brain to interpret these signals as safe—not threats. Over time, this reduces both the pain and the anxiety that fuels it.
4. Addressing Emotional Threats
Many people with migraines also experience stress, perfectionism, or people-pleasing tendencies that keep their nervous system on high alert. PRT works to identify and address these underlying emotional contributors, helping to break the pain-fear cycle and create a more resilient, relaxed brain.
5. Embracing Positive Sensations
Finally, PRT helps you shift focus from pain to positive bodily sensations. This stage is about savoring comfort and pleasure—cultivating new, positive associations that tip your brain further away from pain and toward healing.
What Results Can You Expect?
Although research on PRT for migraines is still growing, early case reports are inspiring. People with frequent, disabling migraines have seen dramatic reductions—from 18–30 headache days per month to just 3–5—after completing PRT. They also report less pain intensity, better function, and less reliance on medication. The most significant improvements seem to come after shifting toward a brain-based understanding of pain and practicing somatic tracking daily.
The Future of Migraine Care
While PRT isn’t yet mainstream for migraines, mounting evidence supports its promise as a drug-free, empowering way to reclaim your life from chronic pain. Curious to learn how PRT could work for you? As your coach at prtcoach.com, I’m always ready to have a conversation about your story and help you take those hopeful first steps to lasting relief.