A detailed guide to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), including its symptoms, causes, and effective treatment strategies to improve energy and well-being.
Derived from the Latin word “inflammo,” which means, “I set alight, I ignite,” inflammation is the body’s natural self-protectant against potentially harmful stimuli. When a part of the body becomes irritated or damaged, the body responds to protect it from further injury and restore tissue function. Inflammation can be beneficial when, for instance, you sustain a broken knee and the tissues surrounding the area need extra protection and care. In other cases, inflammation can cause further inflammation and get in the way of other normal processes of the body.
Chronicillness.co Site of United States staff is dedicated to giving patients their life back. Chronic pain symptoms can have a great deal to do with the foods you are consuming, and choosing nutritious anti-inflammatory foods are a great way to combat pain.
Turmeric is commonly used in Indian cuisine and has a peppery, bitter flavor. Some people say it has a hint of orange or ginger to its taste. Turmeric has a mustard-yellow color. For centuries, turmeric has been used to treat wounds, colds, liver disease, and fight infections. Curcumin is a compound of turmeric, and also helps reduce inflammation.
Ginger root is better known for its ability to heal travel sickness, nausea, and indigestion. However, some people use this zesty spice as a remedy for colic, irritable bowel, loss of appetite, flu, menstrual cramps, and chills. Because ginger is filled with many anti-inflammatory properties, it is great to use for arthritis, tendonitis, headaches, and cholesterol and blood pressure aid.
Garlic has many anti-inflammatory properties, which studies show help ease arthritis pain. Allicin, a substance found in garlic is filled with anti-bacterial properties that work like penicillin. Garlic is a natural antibiotic that helps boost the immune system, improve circulation, and lowers blood pressure.
Almost all other anti-inflammatory herbs and spices are filled with other nutrients and properties that help keep the body healthy. Dr. Andrew Weil is an expert on the anti-inflammatory diet. Before making any changes to your diet, consult with your physician first.
If you’re not taking regular breaks to move around during your workday, your muscles may rebel after being scrunched in your desk chair hour after hour.
The rebellion might be felt in your neck, shoulders, back, hips and legs when you do finally stand up. Stop the insurrection with these three simple stretching exercises you can do without even leaving your workstation or office.
Start with the lateral lean. Stand up straight and clasp your hands behind your head. Turn your head toward your left elbow and then lean your torso in the same plane to the right — don’t bend forward or backward. Hold the stretch for 30 seconds and then repeat the stretch to the opposite side.
Next move to the standing hip flexor. Despite its name, it helps the legs as well. Lightly place your left hand on your desk for balance and bend your right knee, bringing your right foot behind you toward your right glute. Grip the right ankle with your right hand to gently press the heel toward your butt. Contract both sides of your glutes and keep your knees close together and your spine straight. Hold for 30 seconds and then repeat with the left leg.
Finish with the open and closed upper body stretch. It helps prevent both lower back and shoulder pain. From a standing position, hinge forward from the waist, letting your arms hang toward the floor. Take a few deep breaths and then slowly stand up straight as you move your arms out to the sides in line with your shoulders. Rotate your thumbs backwards with your palms facing the ceiling. Think of bringing your thumbs together behind you as you open your upper chest toward the ceiling. Hold for 30 seconds and repeat up to four times in total.
Take three minutes every two or three hours — more often if you can — to do these simple moves. Your body will thank you.
Exercise is important, and not only when you’re healthy. Here at Chronicillness.co Site of United States, we know that patients dealing with chronic pain also need to exercise. But when pain is radiating through the body, it can be difficult to find the energy to work out. This is why Zumba Sentao is a great workout for chronic pain patients.
Zumba Sentao is a spin-off of regular Zumba, the popular cardio dance class that has become all the rage recently. It is a great all-over body toning workout using a chair and Zumba moves.
Zumba Sentao combines strength and resistance exercises with cool dance moves on and around a chair while still keeping the Zumba party dance rhythms and international flavors.
Zumba creator Beto Perez came up with the idea for Sentao when he arrived to demonstrate a Zumba class in Italy and found everyone sitting on chairs ready to “watch” the show. He quickly improvised and taught simple Zumba routines in the chair. Then he got the class up off the chair, moving around the chair, using the chair for simple toning and strength exercises. The class loved it and Zumba Sentao was born.
While currently there are only a few hundred licensed Zumba Sentao instructors worldwide (meaning there may not be a class near every patient), patients can ask a Zumba Fitness instructor about the program and when it is coming to their part of the world.
One of the main advantages of the Zumba Sentao class is being able to effectively work the core muscles, which include the abs and midsection.
When sitting on the chair and lifting the knee up, having your feet off the ground activates the lower abdominals. Normally this kind of exercise is very hard for most people to do while lying on the ground (think of the V-sit or bicycle exercise).
Exercises are much easier to do in a chair and very effective. Sentao is also very functional. This means it is a great workout for everyday life. How many times a day do we sit and stand? A lot. And we all need good balance and posture to get through the day without aches and pains.
Because Zumba Sentao is based around a chair it is a great class for those who look at a regular Zumba class and think they could never do that. Zumba Sentao is also perfect for those who can’t stand for long periods of time. The addition of a chair can also make the class appear more comfortable and achievable for the beginner exerciser.
More than 20 years ago, a heavy filing cabinet fell on Cindy Steinberg at her office and caused nerve and ligament damage to her back. The pain never went away. In the years after, she became an advocate for people who experience chronic pain and is currently the national director of policy & advocacy for the U.S. Pain Foundation.
In 2011, a landmark report titled “Relieving Pain in America: A Blueprint for Transforming Prevention, Care, Education, and Research,” made the case for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to define chronic pain as a brain and nervous system disease. However, the change has not been implemented, in part because awareness among other organizations and practitioners is still lacking.
“The problem is that [chronic pain being a disease] is not widely understood by the public or even (healthcare) providers because pain and advances in pain neuroscience [are] rarely if ever taught in medical school or other professional schools and the public is completely in the dark about this … until it happens to them or a loved one,” Steinberg wrote in an email.
If chronic pain was better understood as a disease, those who live with chronic pain as well as those who research it would benefit immensely. The classification could unlock research funding as well as open the door to drug approvals, and help change attitudes in medical communities. Most important, for consumers, it could pave the way for chronic pain to be covered under health insurance.
According to Monica Mallampalli, Ph.D., senior advisor, scientific & strategic initiatives at chronicillness.co, classifying chronic pain as a disease could create a structure for how pain can be addressed. She emphasized the need for advocacy and education to make that happen.
“Advocacy can help Congress to mandate [chronic pain] as a disease and ask for funding to be allocated to study it as a disease,” Mallampalli, who is also a member of Chronic Pain Advisory Council, wrote in an email. “If that happens, NIH will be asked to put a budget on how to address this.”
“The problem is chronic pain is so complex and includes many diseases and conditions,” she added. “I think it will take time and effort to break those silos.”
There are two types of pain: chronic and acute. Acute pain is usually the result of a specific cause — think broken bone or a burn — and goes away once that injury heals. Chronic pain lasts for longer than six months after an injury heals or an illness ends.
There’s also high-impact chronic pain, which NIH defines as pain that has lasted at least three months and restricts someone’s ability to work, go to school, or accomplish household tasks.
“It robs your life of any quality,” said Steinberg, who cannot sit or stand for more than an hour at a time.
Fifty million people in the U.S. — 1 in 5 Americans — live with chronic pain, according to a 2018 study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Additionally, of the nearly 50 million Americans with chronic pain, about 20 million have high-impact chronic pain, and 11.3 million of those are women, according to the CDC.
“The historical view of chronic pain and pain in general has been that pain is a symptom of some other derangement in the body, and the pain is important only in that it’s a signal of something else that is wrong,” said Dr. Roger Fillingim, a professor at the University of Florida who has spent more than 25 years researching chronic pain.
Under the traditional mindset, healthcare providers (HCPs) would then follow a basic biomedical method: Find the source of the pain, treat it, and the pain goes away.
“Frankly that would be just fine if that perspective worked, but for the tens of millions who currently have high-impact pain and have sought many treatments to try to get rid of whatever the derangement that physicians think is causing it, that approach to chronic pain hasn’t been very effective,” Fillingim said.
When part of your body suffers harm, it sends signals to your brain — known as neurotransmitters — that cause you to feel pain. But with some forms of chronic pain, those neurotransmitters don’t turn off, causing a type of feedback loop where the pain continues even though the initial injury has already healed.
“Increasingly, it’s clear that the brain seems to change significantly in people with chronic pain,” Fillingim said. “Regardless of where pain starts, it’s only pain if it’s in the nervous system. No brain, no pain.”
Instead, researchers including Fillingim are studying how to treat the nervous system and how it processes pain. Rather than searching for a source outside the brain, they’re focusing on the brain itself.
Numerous studies have shown that HCPs are less likely to take women’s pain seriously, especially when it comes to chronic pain, than they are for men. Antidepressants may be prescribed to treat chronic pain, and women are more likely to end up with a referral to a mental health provider than have their pain taken seriously.
This is where it gets complicated because chronic pain is a risk factor for people to develop anxiety and depression, and vice versa. As a result, medical providers may dismiss patients’ pain as part of their mental health disorder.
“The concern is that people with chronic pain conditions will have their pain minimized and perceived as just another symptom of their psychological condition,” Fillingam said.
Recognizing chronic pain as a disease would be a game changer in terms of how insurance companies address treatment options. A 2017 review of state-based health insurance plans found that the majority did not cover nonpharmaceutical treatment options for people with chronic low back pain, for example.
“Acknowledging the burden of pain and how this disease has affected so many millions of people should lead to pressure on insurers to approve coverage for more treatment,” Steinberg said.
Maria Willson, senior policy advisor at chronicilness.co, said getting the condition classified as a disease is a concept that has value because insurers pay medical bills based on CPT codes for disease evaluation, diagnosis and treatment submitted by providers. This can give insurers control over which treatment doctors can give a patient so that they will be reimbursed and not have to pay out of pocket for costly care that they may not be able to afford otherwise.
“While I think this is changing slightly, it is more likely HCPs have figured out ways to bill,” Nolan wrote in an email. “With the bias toward treating something recognized as a disease as opposed to something unidentifiable or harder to classify, making the change could help with coverage as well as people with chronic pain not being dismissed by doctors.”
By increasing chronic pain research and training, experts hope that HCPs will be better informed when speaking to patients about their pain and that if HCPs understand that this is disease like any other disease, patients will in turn receive better treatment.
When Karen Finney went into the hospital for brain surgery, she was well aware of the gender pain gap: women in pain are taken and treated less seriously than men in pain. Women of color are affected even more severely, and as a Black woman, Finney knew the hill to relief would be even steeper to climb.
When she woke up after surgery to remove her brain tumor, she was in excruciating pain. She was given painkillers every four hours but said she began to notice that the effects of the drugs would wear off 20 minutes before the four-hour mark — and then they would take another 20 minutes to kick in once they were dispensed again. “I was in this cycle [where] I was in so much pain and it was … up and down and up and down,” Finney recently recounted to Chronicillness.co.
When a nurse asked her where her pain was on a scale of 1 to 10, Finney told her the truth: It was a 12. Despite the fact that she had just undergone brain surgery and had damage to her vocal chords that made it difficult to speak, Finney tried to advocate for herself. “I said, I understand some people have biases about Black people and our pain levels, but when I say I’m at a 12 out of 10, I’m not exaggerating.” The nurse told her she understood and wanted to take the issue seriously — then she offered Finney the opportunity to fill out a report about the experience.
Recounting this moment in her journey, Finney’s voice is clouded with pain and tears. She was in the hospital after brain surgery in horrific pain and all that was offered to her was paperwork.
Days after her surgery, she was finally given a morphine drip that she could control herself, but those couple of days of needless, intense suffering have stuck with her.
It’s widely known that although women experience more chronic pain conditions than men — whether it’s fibromyalgia, endometriosis, or migraine — their pain is treated less seriously. In a 2019 Chronicillness.co survey, 45% of respondents said they didn’t think their healthcare providers took their pain seriously. And there are facts behind those feelings: Women experiencing pain are more likely than men to receive a sedative prescription instead of a pain medication prescription.
The gender pain gap extends to the emergency room, where men wait an average of 49 minutes before receiving pain medication in instances of acute abdominal pain while women wait an average of 65 minutes in the same situation. Women are even half as likely as men to receive painkillers after a coronary bypass surgery.
In the paper, “The Girl Who Cried Pain: A Bias Against Women in the Treatment of Pain,” Diane Hoffman and Anita Tarzian found that “women report more severe levels of pain, more frequent incidences of pain, and pain of longer duration than men, but are nonetheless treated for pain less aggressively.” But what is it about women in pain that is so easily shrugged off by healthcare providers?
Dr. Sharon Allison-Ottey, an internal medicine physician and a member of Chronicillness.co’s Women’s Health Advisory Council (WHAC), says women are often considered histrionic when they complain of pain. “They’re not taken as seriously, whether that’s chest pain and they’re having a myocardial infarction or they’ve just broken a bone,” Allison-Ottey said.
“There is the perception of the big, strong male who says he’s in pain being taken more seriously by healthcare professionals and therefore acted upon [rather] than the weak little woman in the corner who is complaining about pain, and she’s just had major surgery as well. She’s often thought of as weak and not being able to tolerate pain or overstating her pain level.”
Another member of the WHAC, Dr. Daihnia Dunkley, whose background is in maternal child health and labor and delivery, said it’s been disturbing to see how differently female pain is perceived — and under prescribed. “There’s an implicit bias there between the two sexes when it comes to pain management,” Dunkley said.
In a 2016 study, half of medical students and residents believed one of the three erroneous beliefs: “Black people’s nerve endings are less sensitive than white people’s”; “Black people’s skin is thicker than white people’s”; “Black people’s blood coagulates more quickly than white people’s.” These kinds of false perceptions, Dunkley said, need to be addressed during medical education and training so they aren’t perpetuated further.
According to Allison-Ottey, the change in treatment between Black women and white women can sometimes be understood by implicit bias. It may not be that a doctor or healthcare provider is racist, but they’re surrounded by the stigma of the Black patient coming into the emergency room with drug-seeking behavior. “Really, they’re in excruciating pain and you want to give them extra strength tylenol, but that same person in the next room who’s white is getting hydrocodone,” Allison-Ottey said.
If she were to advise other women, Finney said she would tell them to talk to their doctors and anesthesiologist and create a plan for pain management before heading into surgery. If possible, she says, it’s best to bring someone with you who can understand the plan and advocate for you because it can be difficult, and sometimes impossible, to advocate for yourself when you’ve just undergone surgery. And, she said, don’t be afraid to use your voice.
“Remember it is your right to ask as many questions as you need because you deserve to feel comfortable with the plan,” Finney said. “I think sometimes any of us can get intimidated and think the doctors and nurses know best. It’s your right to ask questions. It’s their job to answer those questions.”
Back pain is extremely common, with experts estimating that up to 80 percent of the population will experience back pain at some point in their lives.
If your back pain is disabling and persistent, your health care provider may recommend diagnostic tests like an XRAY or MRI to determine if surgery may be the best option for you.
Back surgery can help relieve some causes of back pain, but the key is the ability of your physician to identify key signs of symptoms to determine whether surgery is needed.
Some other reasons you may want to ask your health care provider for more information about surgery include: bone spurs in your spine; trouble walking; a degenerative spinal condition that’s causing side effects like weakness; a slipped disk that isn’t improving; a tumor on your spinal cord; or a broken or dislocated bone in your back. In most cases, your surgeon will discuss with you appropriate treatment based on your clinical history. However, it is important that you let you your surgeon know if you have unrelenting pain, neurological issues or a serious problem like a spinal cord injury.
Types of surgery Some minimally invasive procedures are outlined below.
Balloon kyphoplasty Balloon kyphoplasty (BKP) is a minimally invasive surgery that can stabilize a fracture or compressed vertebrae due to osteoporosis, cancer, or noncancerous tumors. It can alleviate your back pain from a spinal fracture and restore vertebral height and proper spinal alignment. Other benefits include improved mobility, ability to perform daily tasks and better quality of life. During surgery, balloons are used to elevate the fractured vertebra to return it to the correct position. The balloon creates a cavity that is filled with a special cement to prevent collapse from happening again. Good candidates are people with severe pain, those too frail or old or whose bones are too weak for spinal surgery, or younger people who have osteoporosis (where bones become weak and brittle) caused by steroid treatment or a metabolic disorder.
Diskectomy Here, the damaged portion of a herniated disk is removed from the spine to relieve irritation and inflammation of a nerve. A herniated disk happens when some of the softer material inside the disk pushes out through a crack in the exterior. Typically, surgery involves full or partial removal of the back portion of a vertebra to get to the ruptured disc. It’s most effective for treating pain that radiates down your arms or neck pain. It’s less helpful for treating back pain. But your health care professional may suggest it if other treatments haven’t worked or your symptoms worsen.
Laminectomy Here, bones overlying the spinal canal are removed. That enlarges the spinal canal and creates space, relieving pressure on the spinal cord or nerves. Typically, the pressure is caused by bony overgrowths in the spinal canal, also known as bone spurs. These growths can happen in people who have arthritis in their spines and are also a normal part of aging. A laminectomy is generally only used when more conservative treatments haven’t relieved symptoms or symptoms are severe or worsening.
Spinal fusion Spinal fusion permanently connects two or more bones in your spine with metal plates, screws or rods. That fusion forms one, immobile unit. The surgery improves stability, corrects a deformity and relieves pain. It can be used to stop the progression of a spinal deformity (such as scoliosis), spinal weakness or instability, or a herniated disk.
Artificial disk replacement Here, worn or damaged disks are removed and replaced with artificial ones. The procedure aims to help relieve back pain while maintaining normal motion. In general, good candidates for disk replacement have no prior surgery on the spine, no spinal deformity, back pain that’s caused by one or two problematic disks, and no significant joint disease in the spinal nerve.
Make sure to speak with a health care professional about both the benefits and risks of these procedures.
The sciatic nerve is located in the lower back and branches out toward the buttocks and legs. When the sciatic nerve is pinched, a person may feel severe pain in these regions that radiates down the legs.
In order to confirm a sciatica diagnosis, your physician may analyze your movement to determine the exact location of your pain. An x-ray may be necessary to see if any of the vertebrae in your spine are pressing into the sciatic nerve.
Sciatica may be caused when a herniated discputs pressure on the sciatic nerve. While herniated disks are the most common reason for buttock and leg pain, there are a number of other causes such as an overgrown bone or a previous injury.
Although there is no cure for sciatica, there are different treatment options available depending on the severity of your pain and the condition’s progression. Anti-inflammatory medication may be prescribed to reduce pain, but if that is not enough, your physician at Chronicillness.co Site may recommend having an epidural steroid injection.
This injection goes into your spine and releases steroids to reduce inflammation and ease the pain. The effects of an epidural steroid injection will not cure your sciatica, but the procedure can be repeated if the pain comes back.
In severe cases, your physician may recommend having surgery. The bone or section of the herniated disk pinching the nerve may be removed. Typically, surgery is reserved for cases where the patient’s sciatica is causing issues such as a loss of bowel control. Nevertheless, our team can discuss this option with you if it’s something you wish to pursue.
While exercisecannot cure your sciatica, exercises for sciatica may help relieve your symptoms. Strengthening areas around your spine like your core and buttocks can strengthen your body’s support system and get the pressure off the sciatic nerve. By staying active, you are increasing the blood flow to your legs and lower back, which may ease your sciatic nerve pain.
Your physician will be able to talk to you about these sciatica treatment options as well as other procedures Chronicillness.co Site offers to ease your sciatic nerve pain.
Spotting gray hairs on your head. Forgetting where you put the car keys. Waking up a bit earlier. These things all can be a part of life as we get older.
But what about your back. How much back pain is normal? Is it OK to be in pain or is something bigger going on? Yes, basic aches and pains are facts of life. So, a little spine pain is totally normal and common.
Still, back pain shouldn’t be severe and significant. You shouldn’t have sharp pain when you wake up and you can’t recall doing anything out of the ordinary, says Roy Nissim, DC, a chiropractor who practices in Santa Monica, Calif.
If you did yardwork and you normally don’t, it’s normal to be a bit achy. But if you’re in construction and you’re in back pain (even after taking some over-the-counter medicines to help relieve pain and inflammation), something may be wrong. “We can wake up with aches and pains,” says Dr. Nissim. “But a sharp and dull pain isn’t normal. For most, if pain lingers for more than 48 hours, that’s a red flag. A light bulb should go off that something’s not right.”
He also says you want to look out for pain that goes away and then returns feeling worse. That can be a red flag that something is going on.
Don’t wait to visit a health care professional if you’re in pain. “Don’t let pain linger longer than a week,” says Dr. Nissim. “If something is bothering you, seek help. It’s easier to treat and resolve something that’s new, fresh and acute rather than treat something that’s chronic.”
Why prevent falls No one likes to fall. It’s embarrassing and, as you get older, it’s dangerous. If you prevent falls, you ward off most fractures and serious injuries. According to the National Council on Aging, falls are the leading cause of both fatal and nonfatal injuries for older Americans. In fact, 25 percent of Americans ages 65 and older fall at least once each year. What’s worse, falling once doubles your chances of it happening again.
You can take some general measure to help prevent falls. Work on balancing exercises, says Dr. Nissim. For example, stand on one foot. Or sit and then stand without using your hands to help you up and down. Be aware of your surroundings. For example, sit a moment before you get out of bed. Then stand and get your balance before you walk. Women should avoid high-heeled shoes, which may make them prone to tripping, Dr. Nissim says.
Vertebral compression fractures Vertebral compression fractures (VCFs) are the most common fracture in people with osteoporosis, affecting about 750,000 people annually, says the American Association of Neurological Surgeons. VCFs affect about one-quarter of postmenopausal women in the United States. The risk of this condition increases with age; about 40 percent of women age 80 and older are affected.
VCFs happen when the bony block or vertebral body in the spine collapses. That can lead to severe pain, deformity and height loss. These fractures happen more commonly in the middle portion of the spine.
Most of the time, VCFs happen without an injury or pain. It can be caused by something as insignificant as a sneeze. One of the first signs of a VCF is height loss. Do your adult children seem taller? Do you need to hem pants you’ve worn for years? Are you suddenly unable to reach a shelf? This may mean you’ve experienced VCF.
Risks if left untreated A VCF is painful. Even when you don’t feel it, says the National Osteoporosis Foundation, it can be serious. People who’ve had one VCF are at five times the risk of having a second one. Risk for death goes up to more than 50 percent a year after a vertebral fracture. Each broken vertebra raises the risk for another since it changes how weight is balanced on the spine. You’ll experience pain in your back and chest since these muscles have to work hard to hold you upright. It gets harder to walk. You develop stomach troubles and difficulty breathing. If you do nothing, you may experience disability.
Treatment options Current therapies for vertebral fractures include nonsurgical and surgical treatments. Nonsurgical management includes analgesia, bed rest, physiotherapy, and back bracing.
A balloon kyphoplasty (BKP)—a minimally invasive surgery that can stabilize a fracture or compressed vertebrae due to osteoporosis, cancer, or non-cancerous tumors—is another treatment option. It can reduce your back pain from a spinal fracture and restore vertebral height and proper spinal alignment. Other benefits include improved mobility, ability to perform daily tasks and better quality of life. During the surgery, balloons are used to elevate the fractured vertebrae to return them to the correct position. The balloon creates a cavity that is filled with a special cement to prevent collapse from happening again. Good candidates are people with severe pain, those too frail or old or whose bones are too weak for spinal surgery, or younger people who have osteoporosis caused by steroid treatment or a metabolic disorder.
Although the complication rate for BKP is low, as with most surgical procedures, serious adverse events, some of which can be fatal, can occur, including heart attack, cardiac arrest (heart stops beating), stroke, and embolism (blood, fat, or cement that migrates to the lungs or heart). Other risks include infection; leakage of bone cement into the muscle and tissue surrounding the spinal cord and nerve injury that can, in rare instances, cause paralysis; leakage of bone cement into the blood vessels resulting in damage to the blood vessels, lungs, and/or heart. Talk to a health care provider about both benefits and risks of this procedure. A prescription is required. Results may vary.
Taking control of painful symptoms is challenging under even the best of circumstances. Yet, taking affirmative steps in this regard can be empowering. These five tips can help you manage your pain both on your own and in connection with others.
1. Become aware of your baseline pain and create a self-care plan. Gain familiarity with your symptoms. This will allow you to recognize when further intervention or changes need to be made, or if your treatment is working. Next, develop a self-care plan. Create a schedule, routine, or checklist for your treatment so that you can comply with your physician’s directions and engage family and friends where you may require assistance.
2. Self-manage your pain alongside a comprehensive treatment plan. A comprehensive treatment plan can empower your health. There are many components that can go into a treatment plan such as proper diet and exercise. Another way to keep up with an active lifestyle is to make massage part of your daily routine. In fact, according to research, a significant reduction in pain levels can be achieved with therapeutic massage. In addition to relieving tension, massage can help decrease swelling and improve blood circulation to promote the healing of soft-tissue damage, bruising and muscle fatigue. It also helps improve flexibility and mobility faster while reducing overall stiffness.
Massage can also impact the healing process by improving relaxation, sleep, emotions and overall recovery. There are many options for massage, and often at-home tools may be the most convenient for individuals who are limited by function or time. For example the Wahl Deep Tissue Massager is a useful tool to add to a pain management regimen that’s convenient, cost-effective and respectful of your busy schedule.
3. Communicate your limitations to people close to you. By communicating clearly to your close friends and family, misunderstandings and stigma can be avoided. Clear communication can create a path toward additional support for better health outcomes. Pain is a subjective phenomenon, and until you communicate about it to your doctors, they cannot help you make a road map to reach your destination of pain relief. Communicating about your pain will help you garner support and it is the first step to alleviate the cycle of mental stress related to your painful symptoms.
4. Create a goal-oriented daily routine that you can achieve. Setting a reasonable framework will help you cope with your pain and stress in an effective manner. Clarifying roles and responsibilities for yourself and those within your support network can ease anxieties that could exacerbate pain. Perhaps you are taking on a function that is better delegated, oralternatively, maybe an already delegated task could be better accomplished on your own. Creating reasonable expectations for the people in your circle can help you ultimately gain traction in your health goals.
5. Learn coping mechanisms to address your mental health wellness. Coping is key to dealing with chronic pain. There are negative emotional consequences of chronic pain that require one to think positively and practice gratitude. Meditation can give you a spiritual experience and support. The regular practice of meditation creates a relaxation reflex. It calms your mind and releases tension in your body tissues. Practice positive affirmations and continue to stay focused on your goals to better health.
Additionally, music therapy can be a useful way to supplement a comprehensive pain treatment plan. Listening to the music of your choice can help your body calm and release the tension in your muscles. As suggested by a research study, music interventions may provide a practical complementary approach for the relief of acute, procedural and chronic pain management. These are only a few examples of coping mechanisms which you may choose to integrate into your treatment plan.
A lumbar medial branch block is an injection procedure that pinpoints which facet joint in the low back is causing discomfort. Facet joints are small joints located in between vertebrae that help the spine bend and twist. Each one of these unique joints is surrounded by medial branch nerves, which help carry pain signals from the joints to the brain. Although the purpose of a lumbar medial branch block is to diagnosewhich facet joint(s) are causing the most pain, this minimally invasive procedure can also provide some pain relief.
Pain in the facet joints usually develops from a spinal condition that causes inflammation. Spinal stenosis, osteoarthritis, or degenerative disc disease are just a few conditions that could lead to facet joint pain. Other causes may include trauma or injury to the low back.
The procedure begins with the patient laying face down and with the physician injecting a local anesthetic. This helps minimize the patient’s discomfort during the procedure. The physician will then use a fluoroscope and contrast dye to locate and confirm which medial branch nerves are causing pain.
Once the physician has been able to identify the affected medial branch nerves, he or she will inject an anesthetic into the targeted nerves. Two adjacent medial branch nerves in the spine are usually treated during one injection.
If the patient experiences pain relief immediately after the injection, then the physician can infer the procedure was a success. This diagnostic process will eventually determine whether or not the patient is a candidate for a procedure called radiofrequency neurotomy (ablation). This particular procedure may provide patients with longer pain relief.
