Chronic Pain Myths:

My body must be in danger if it’s hurting -
Pain doesn’t always represent ongoing physical harm. The nervous system might be firing off erroneous message, or your body’s is having trouble producing its natural painkilling substances. The fear of damage and illness also may distort your nervous system causing you to hurt even more. Understanding the pain is not actually harming your body may not cure your pain but can provide significant relief.

Bed rest is good when you’re in pain –
There was a time not long ago when doctors prescribed bed rest as recuperation from, or treatment for, many acute and chronic ailments. While the medical community no longer supports this practice, many laypersons still self-prescribe bed rest for considerable time, only to find their symptoms mysteriously getting worse instead of better. Your body needs movement and the demand it places on its various systems to survive. Inactivity causes bones to lose calcium, a reduction of nutrients to the muscles, joints become stiff or stiffer. This in turn causes the cartilage to deteriorate and arthritic changes to commence and progress.

An uncomfortable chair is bad for you –
A comfortable chair is potentially more harmful and destructive to your back than an uncomfortable one for a few important reasons. First and foremost, comfort promotes prolonged sitting. Sitting for 45 minutes or longer puts a damaging amount of pressure onto your lower back, hips, and knees. Also, the lack of movement while seated holds your muscles to short, tight positions to accommodate the posture of sitting. Once you get up and move around, the muscles impose an excessive load on the joints. While prolonged sitting in any type of chair is detrimental to your muscles and joints, ergonomic chairs make a bad situation better. Still, for the best results, get out of your seat and move around every 45 minutes, and don’t be afraid to fidget!

You just have to live with it –
Your physician may claim to have run through all the available options and there is simply nothing more to be done. In reality, there are a vast number of treatments that can drastically reduce your pain or limit its impact on your life. Take pain pills for example. If you’ve tried one type of drug that worked well but gave you undesirable side effects, there are other drugs in that same class of medication that could have a very different effect on you chemically. Perhaps drugs aren’t the best type of treatment for you. Some form of nerve distraction therapy, such as acupuncture, yoga or massage, may ease your pain much more effectively. The main thing to keep in mind is that there are more options to fight chronic pain than even your physician may know. If your doctor makes you feel like a pest for asking about pain control, you should look for another one.

Mind / Body Treatments:

These practices are based on the interconnectedness of mind and body, and the power of one to affect the other. They’ve shown to help control chronic pain by reducing stress, tension and depression, factors that intensify pain. Mind and body therapies also help promote an overall sense of well-being.

Biofeedback –
Biofeedback translates information about your body into visual or audio cues. You are connected, usually by electrodes taped to your skin but sometimes by handheld thermometers, to computers and monitors that allow you to “see” muscle tension as a pattern on a screen or “hear” your temperature as a series of beeps. Over time, you learn how to control these body functions by paying attention t the feedback and experimenting with ways to manipulate it. After you’ve figured out how to relax your muscles or raise your body temperature or change some other aspects of your physiology in the practitioner’s office, you can duplicate the effect on your own. Electromyography (EMG), is the most popular biofeedback which teaches you to control muscle spasms (learn about EMG). Biofeeback has been proven to reduce headaches, chronic muscle tension, anxiety, TMJ, and insomnia.

Hypnosis –
By slipping into a trancelike, highly suggestible state, patients can learn to control body functions that are usually involuntary. They can reduce their blood pressure, heart rate, and level of stress hormones, and possibly even change how the brain activates during a pain sensation.

When you’re under hypnosis, your mind is in a state of deep concentration and is receptive to suggestion. A therapist can use this mental state to offer you alternative, relaxing responses to pain. For example, she may suggest that upon feeling pain, you lower your blood pressure instead of raise it; or she may use imagery instead, suggesting that you imagine that your pain is controlled by a dial that you can turn down at will. Your therapist should be certified by either the National Board for Certified Clinical Hypnotherapists or the American Council of Hypnotist Examiners.

Meditation –
We’re all pretty good at thinking. The problem is that most of us are unable to stop. You know the feeling, your mind plays one particular worry or though over and over, in an obsessively running loop. Or maybe it chatters away at you about a thousand different things.

Meditation is a way of quieting that chatter. By bringing your focus to your breath, a mantra, or the like, you give your mind something simple to hold on to as you gradually let go of the world. By controlling your attention, you’re accomplishing something deeply therapeutic. You begin to feel more relaxed, more at peace with yourself. This feeling usually lasts far beyond the meditation itself, so that when stress comes flying your way, you have the psychic resources to deflect it. For people with nerve-related pain in particular, meditation is often more effective than any other therapy at turning down that nerve noise and letting you get on with your life.

Yoga –
What makes yoga so powerful for back and other kinds of pain? When you practice yoga, you use physical exercises, breathing and relaxation techniques, and meditation to help you integrate these different aspects of your being. Such integration has a strengthening effect on your whole self, and fortifies your resistance to pain. Yoga helps you become more accepting of your body and of your pain, less judgmental and reactive. With time, you’ll also become an expert on your body; you’ll know what makes it feel worse and how to coax it into balance.

Finally, the poses themselves can ease your pain. They make you stronger and more flexible, improve the circulation to your joints and muscles, and stimulate your brain to produce painkilling chemicals.

Breathing techniques –
Pain can literally take your breath away. Over time, many chronic pain sufferers develop a pattern of shallow inhalations that are the breath equivalent of junk food. When you aren’t breathing deeply, you may experience muscle tension or have trouble sleeping. By bringing greater awareness to your breathing, you can induce a state of relaxation at will.

Deep breathing and breath exercises are useful for almost everyone. For many people with nerve pain, breathing and other mind-body techniques are an especially important source of relief.

Improving Your Sleep:

To improve your sleep, it’s important to recognize factors that may be contributing to your restless nights.
Conditions that may interfere with sleep besides pain:

1. Stress
2. Anxiety
3. Depression
4. Alcohol
5. Stimulant medications
6. Regular use of over-the-counter sleeping pills
7. Lack of physical activity
8. Change in your environment
9. Poor sleep habits

You can do several things to get a good night’s sleep -

1. Establish regular sleep hours. Go to bed and wake up at the same time each day. Following a regular pattern often improves sleep.

2. Sugar can help you sleep. While sugar is not health food, it can help you sleep. It causes the brain to produce serotonin, the neurotransmitter that plays a central role in sleep, moods, and pain control. Fruit sugars work as well as table sugar. So have some orange juice and a cookie an hour before bed.

3. Avoid high-protein foods in the evening. They can block serotonin production. Try to avoid fish, poultry, meats, eggs, and large servings of beans or tofu in the evening if a good night’s sleep is your goal.

4. Limit your time in bed. Too much sleep can promote shallow, unrestful sleep. Aim for 8 hours of sleep a night. Some people can get by on just 4 or 5 hours. Others need up to 10 hours a night. Don’t stay in bed longer than 10 hours.

5. Don’t “try” to sleep. The harder you try, the more awake you’ll become. Read or watch television until you become drowsy and fall asleep naturally.

6. Use sleeping medications wisely. If you decide to use a sleeping medication, make sure your choice is one of the new imidazophridines or, preferably, a tricyclic antidepressant. Use the medication only as an initial boost to help you start your sleeping program and then gradually wean yourself from the medication after you’ve met your sleeping goals.

7. Limit bedroom activities. Save your bedroom for sleep and sex. Don’t watch TV or take your work materials to bed.

8. Avoid or limit caffeine, alcohol and nicotine. Caffeine and nicotine can keep you from falling asleep. Alcohol causes unrestful sleep and frequent awakenings.

9. Minimize interruptions. Close your bedroom door or create a subtle background noise, such as a fan, to drown out other noises. Keep your bedroom temperature comfortable, and drink less before bed so you won’t have to get up at night to go to the bathroom.

10. Keep active. Regular physical activity helps you sleep more soundly. Try to get at least 30 minutes of physical activity daily, preferably 5 to 6 hours before bedtime. Also keep occupied throughout the day. Boredom promotes restless sleep.

11. Check your medications. Ask your doctor if they might be contributing to your difficulty sleeping. Also check over-the-counter products to see if they contain caffeine or other stimulants.

Arthritis: Eating Guidelines for an Anti-inflammatory Diet

1. Consume mostly fruits and vegetables—minimum of 5 servings a day.
2. Eat fish three to five times a week, or use fish oil supplements.
3. Use olive oil instead of vegetable oil or butter.
4. Minimize the amount of meat, dairy and butter—or even become a vegetarian.
5. Take Vitamin E, 400 IU and Flaxseed oil, one tablespoon.
6. Lower your daily caloric intake.
7. Identify and avoid inflammation trigger foods.

Inflammatory-safe foods

1. Brown rice
2. Cooked or dried fruits: cherries, cranberries, pears, prunes (but not citrus fruits, bananas, peaches, or tomatoes)
3. Cooked green, yellow, and orange vegetables: artichokes, asparagus, broccoli,chard, collards, lettuce, spinach, string beans, summer or winter squash, sweet potatoes, tapioca, and taro
4. Water: plain water or carbonated forms, such as Perrier, are fine.
5. Other beverages, even herbal teas, can be triggers.
6. Condiments: modest amounts of salt, maple syrup, and vanilla extract are usually well-tolerated.

Some people use fish oils for their anti-inflammatory omega-3s. However, plant-derived oils have none of the fish odor that can be apparent in the perspiration of people using fish oil. They also tend to be more chemically stable, so they do not oxidize as quickly. They are also lower in saturated fats.

Several spices also show anti-inflammatory effects by blocking enzymes that would otherwise make inflammation-producing prostaglandins. These spices are ginger, clove oil, garlic, turmeric, and cumin.

Best inflammation-fighting foods

Eating at least one food from each category every week will provide the greatest amount of phytochemical, anti-inflammatory compounds.

1. Cruciferous vegetables Bok choy
2. Broccoli
3. Brussels sprouts
4. Cabbage
5. Cauliflower
6. Kale
7. Watercress

1. Green Vegetables Chard
2. Collards
3. Lettuce
4. Mustard greens
5. Spinach

1. Legumes Black beans
2. Chickpeas/garbanzo beans
3. Kidney beans
4. Navy beans
5. Peas
6. Pinto beans
7. Soybeans

1. Berries Blackberries
2. Blueberries
3. Raspberries
4. Strawberries

1. Beta-carotene-rich foods Apricots
2. Cantaloupe
3. Carrots
4. Mango
5. Pumpkin
6. Sweet Potato

Major inflammation trigger foods

1. Dairy products
2. Corn
3. Meats
4. Wheat, oats, rye
5. Eggs
6. Citrus fruits
7. Potatoes
8. Tomatoes
9. Nuts
10. Coffee

Osteoarthritis

Vitamin E relieves pain and improves mobility in patients with osteoarthritis. A typical dosage regimen is 400 IU each day, or 100 IU for people with high blood pressure.