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Getting older certainly has its perks, but the reality is that aging can take its toll on many of us, despite our efforts to get out there and stay active—especially as the cold weather sets in.

No, it wasn’t an exaggeration when your mother/father/grandmother or someone else rubbed their knee/elbow/back, winced and muttered, “I can feel a storm coming on.”

Yes, there is evidence that shows a link between weather changes and chronic pain, especially joint pain and migraines. A 2007 Tufts University study showed that for every 10-degree drop in temperature, there was an incremental increase in arthritis pain. Low barometric pressure, low temperatures and precipitation can all increase pain. The theory is that these conditions increase swelling in the joint capsule, says the Arthritis Foundation.

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It all adds up to giving your body an opportunity to heal itself by reducing its creation of pain-driving substances and stimulating mitochondria, the “energy packs” that drive cellular function and repair.

Here are a few of the more common causes of joint pain and ways to ease your discomfort.

1. Injury
You slip and fall. Overdo it at the gym. Get rear-ended in your car. Sleep in the wrong position. Sit cramped on a plane for too many hours. Have poor posture. There are a zillion ways to injure your body, whether quite innocently and unknowingly from an everyday cause or overuse from repetitive motions over time.

That pain can lead to stiffness, sleep disturbances, a burning sensation in your muscles, achiness or acute pain running from mild to severe.

What to do to relieve muscle tension and soreness? Well, you can complain, call a doctor, take a pain reliever or rest—but don’t underestimate the power of massage in delivering a significant reduction in pain and soreness.

2. Osteoarthritis
This chronic condition of the joints is sometimes referred to as degenerative joint disease or “wear and tear” arthritis. It gets its name from the way it develops: cartilage, the cushion between our joints, breaks down over time and with use. What comes next? Pain, stiffness and swelling.

If your knees, hips, lower back and neck hurt, you’re in good company with the 27 million other Americans who feel the pain. Also affected could be the small joints in your fingers and the bases of your big toe and thumb.

Although physical activity might be the furthest thing from your mind when you’re feeling this way, it pays to be active. Studies show that simple exercise, like walking, can help manage or even reduce the pain from osteoarthritis. Weight management, stretching and anti-inflammatory medications can help, too, as can alternative approaches like massage, acupuncture and hydrotherapy.

3. Bursitis
We all have bursae—small sacs filled with fluid that cushion the bones, tendons and muscles near and around the joints of the shoulders, elbows and hips. When these become inflamed from repetitive movements, you’ve got bursitis, which can also affect the knees, heels and base of the big toe. Sometimes you can get bursitis from putting pressure on a joint for too long—like kneeling or leaning on your knees or elbows, for instance.

The pain from bursitis can make you feel achy or stiff and can hurt when you move or press on the joint, which might also appear swollen or red.

While you can’t prevent all types of bursitis, there are some things you can do to reduce the likelihood you’ll get it. If you do a lot of things that require kneeling, take stress off your knees by using a kneeling pad; warm up and stretch prior to strenuous activity; maintain a healthy weight to take stress off your joints and strengthen the muscles around them; use your knees, rather than your back, to lift heavy loads.

Bursitis usually improves on its own, but you can help it along by resting, icing and taking a pain reliever. More aggressive treatment, if necessary, might include physical therapy, prescription medications and steroid injections.

4. Gout
This inflammatory form of arthritis affects about 4 percent of American adults.

Many people think of gout as a “rich man’s disease,” a result of a lavish and expensive diet. That’s only a very small part of the picture. Most of the uric acid—actually about two-thirds of it—is produced naturally by your body. The rest comes from diet, in the form of purines, found in animal and plant foods. In fact, one of the great myths of gout is that it is caused by or can be controlled by diet. The reality of it is that gout is mainly a metabolic disease with genetic origins.

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Gout occurs when there’s too much uric acid in your body and your kidneys can’t flush it out. It builds in the bloodstream and forms needle-like crystals in a joint. Those crystals, in turn, bring on sudden and severe attacks of pain, tenderness, redness and swelling. It commonly affects the big toe but can also occur in your feet, ankles, knees, hands and wrists. It can make the joint feel like it’s on fire. The pain can get so severe that even the weight of a sheet can be impossible to tolerate.

Don’t think that you don’t have control over gout. You might not be able to change your genetics, but you can change factors like being overweight, which contributes to things like high blood pressure, high cholesterol and high blood sugar—all linked to gout.

Experts say that although eating a low-purine diet won’t cure gout, it’s important to eat well and maintain a healthy weight. And, it’s wise to limit foods that increase uric acid levels, such as red meat, shellfish like shrimp and lobster, beer, liquor and high-fructose corn syrup.

To help ease the pain from acute attacks and prevent future ones, gout is usually treated with medication like nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (aspirin, ibuprofen, naproxen and others), colchicine (a pain reliever used for gout pain) and corticosteroids (like prednisone).

5. Lyme Disease
Achy knees and Lyme disease often go together, and that’s because the bacteria transmitted by the tick bite can spread to your joints. This stiffness could also develop in your neck, hands and feet. Aside from joint pain, Lyme’s usual symptoms are fever, headache, fatigue and a skin rash characterized by a bulls-eye red circle that usually appears about seven days following the bite.

Left untreated, Lyme can also spread to the heart and nervous system.

Each year, approximately 30,000 people get bitten by a tick and develop Lyme disease. The first way to prevent it is to reduce your exposure by avoiding wooded and brush areas with high grass and leaf litter. Also, use insect and tick repellent, and inspect your body thoroughly for ticks after you’ve been outdoors. Putting your clothing in a hot dryer for 10 minutes can kill off any ticks that hitched a ride.

Caught early, Lyme can be successfully treated with a variety of oral, and sometimes, intravenous antibiotics or penicillin.

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For More Information Related to Fibromyalgia Visit below sites:

References:

Fibromyalgia Contact Us Directly

Click here to Contact us Directly on Inbox

Official Fibromyalgia Blogs

Click here to Get the latest Chronic illness Updates

Fibromyalgia Stores

Click here to Visit Fibromyalgia Store

Women who live with chronic pain seek relief through all kinds of treatments, from acupuncture to physical therapy, medication to psychology.

But in recent years, researchers have proven a multidisciplinary approach to chronic pain management can offer substantial and sustained pain relief.

Even if you have explored multiple treatment modalities, you likely haven’t experienced a true multidisciplinary pain management program. That’s because they are few and far between. These complex team-driven programs require resources typically found only at large medical institutions. Some patients travel from far away to receive care because the potential life-changing effects are worth it.

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What is a multidisciplinary pain management program?

In a multidisciplinary approach, a team of clinicians collaborates to create custom treatment programs for each patient, using a variety of modalities. Patients often spend many days a week, sometimes for multiple weeks, in a program.

“It’s more of a patient-centered, goal-oriented, holistic approach,” said Tim J. Lamer, MD, pain management specialist at Mayo Clinic and president of the American Academy of Pain Medicine. Lamer explained that multidisciplinary pain management is like a puzzle where every piece matters—and they all fit together.

Institutions like the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab Pain Management Center in Chicago provide a model for multidisciplinary care, according to attending physician Shana Margolis, MD. There, most patients have previously tried one discipline at a time but not an approach that combines them all. The Shirley Ryan AbilityLab uses a biopsychosocial approach, meaning its team treats biological, psychological, and social drivers of pain, both as individual forces and as forces that intersect with one another.

Multidisciplinary pain management programs may include:

• Pain psychology: Teaching patients how mood affects pain and how pain affects mood, often using cognitive behavioral therapy. “When you’re in pain, it can make you more irritable, anxious, and depressed, which then can make it harder to manage your pain, and you can get stuck in a vicious cycle,” said Margolis.
• Biofeedback therapy: Providing a variety of relaxation techniques that employ monitoring technology that gives patients instant feedback on their efforts.
• Physical therapy: Including time spent on strengthening, range of motion, biomechanics, and pacing.
• Occupational therapy: Focusing on ergonomics and improving a patient’s ability to perform everyday tasks with less pain.
• Vocational therapy: Helping patients learn to reclaim their working life through a variety of strategies.
• Art therapy: Using creativity to cope with pain, express emotions, and even reduce symptoms.
• Interventional therapies: Employing techniques like nerve blocks, injections, or electrical stimulator devices to treat the neurological aspect of pain.
• Physician and nurse monitoring: Ensuring patients are using medications properly, that comorbid conditions are also well-managed, and more.

Margolis said a key aspect of a multidisciplinary approach is that the patient is at the center of the program, playing an active role in their own care, as opposed to simply receiving treatment. “We’re trying to give patients tools in their toolbox so they can learn to self-manage their pain,” she said.

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Research shows results

Lamer said most patients in a multidisciplinary approach experience improved function, mental health and management of pain in their busy lives. And there’s research to prove it, he said, including at least one study that followed patients for as long as 13 years who experienced long-term benefits.

More research by Shirley Ryan Ability Lab Pain Management Center and the Department of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago showed patients experienced improvement in pain, pain-related anxiety, ability to cope, and depression, among others.

Margolis said that while many people can benefit from a multidisciplinary pain management approach, patients with widespread pain conditions like complex regional pain syndrome and fibromyalgia are likely to experience the greatest benefit. “Any kind of chronic pain condition that’s really affecting the patient’s lifestyle is where we excel,” she said. Emphasis on the mind-body connection and mindfulness plays a significant role in a patient’s success.

Ready to take action?

If you’re looking for a multidisciplinary pain management program, ask at your nearest large medical center. If there isn’t one in your immediate area, reach out to reputable programs and ask if they can recommend a provider in your area.

The American Chronic Pain Association offers an extensive overview of pain management programs.

The Alliance for Balanced Pain Management offers resources for patients seeking to understand their treatment options.

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For More Information Related to Fibromyalgia Visit below sites:

References:

Fibromyalgia Contact Us Directly

Click here to Contact us Directly on Inbox

Official Fibromyalgia Blogs

Click here to Get the latest Chronic illness Updates

Fibromyalgia Stores

Click here to Visit Fibromyalgia Store

As a physical therapist, my job is to assist my patients to move better, get stronger, and most often to reduce their pain. This is an important, gratifying, and yet often challenging profession. This is in part due to my own daily chronic pain that is primarily in my low back and tailbone. I have been in some level of pain constantly for the past ten years.

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While there are times that I share my experience with my patients, I usually smile, persevere and act as if everything is fine. I think many others with chronic pain can relate to this alternate persona—the brave mask so many chronic pain warriors put on daily.

This is one of the tricky things about living with chronic pain. Most of the time I just want to feel normal. I want to go about my day-to-day tasks as if everything was not a monumental challenge and a huge energy expense. I want to pretend that my chronic pain has not affected my job satisfaction, my relationships and my feelings of self-worth.

There are other times when I want to scream. I want to wear a sign across my chest that says, “Please be gentle with me, I have chronic pain.” I want everyone around me know what I’m going through, why I am the way I am. I want my struggles heard, to know that it’s not easy. It is not pity I seek, but rather compassionate recognition of the daily challenges of living with chronic pain.

I’m often afraid to talk about my struggles with chronic pain. This would mean ripping up the mask––that brave face that I have worked so hard to maintain. My hope is that if I am true and open about my experiences more, a few people might feel less alone. A few people may push aside the fear of stigmatization and feel comfortable to be open and honest about what they are going through.

Early in my clinical training, a patient taught me an important lesson. She told me to never tell someone, “I know how you feel.” Her statement took me aback, but her explanation has really stuck with me. It is true. I could never really know what someone is feeling. It is impossible to know just from their explanations, my own examination and my pre-conceived beliefs and education.

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I cannot innately tell how past experiences have affected someone. I cannot exactly grasp the psychological impacts that their illness or pain has had on them. I do not know all other aspects of their life that this has affected. I can’t ever fully understand what someone else is going through, but I can listen. I can respect someone’s experience and I can do my best to validate their concerns. I can call on my past experiences of others discrediting my own feelings and I can work hard to not allow this to happen to another person—at least when they are working with me.

I learned that opening up about my pain did lead to judgment from a few—one family member told someone that I write about my chronic pain, as a way to complain and vent. Many more have provided support and encouragement. I also learned that ignoring your pain and suffering in silence does not make it go away. I have found that by acknowledging my pain it encourages me to seek more treatment and work harder toward finding relief.

Most importantly, talking about my pain has allowed me to maintain the healthy human connection that we all crave and need so badly in this life. It is so much easier to genuinely connect with the people in your life when you are raw and honest. It is never easy, but eventually you will have to take the mask off and let the person see the real you.

I hope that you will find that by talking about your experiences with chronic pain and acknowledging its presence will lessen the power it has over your life. By ignoring my pain, I felt helpless. I let my chronic pain determine what kind of day I was going to have, how long a relationship could last, and how many hours I could stand to work in a week.

While the process is ongoing, I am happy to be taking steps to regain control and be honest about my experiences. I am in far less discomfort than I used to be and now I have something even more important—the hope that one day I might actually be pain-free.

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For More Information Related to Fibromyalgia Visit below sites:

References:

Fibromyalgia Contact Us Directly

Click here to Contact us Directly on Inbox

Official Fibromyalgia Blogs

Click here to Get the latest Chronic illness Updates

Fibromyalgia Stores

Click here to Visit Fibromyalgia Store