Understand Lyme disease, its symptoms, causes, and treatment options to prevent long-term effects and improve recovery chances.
Pain is an unavoidable fact of life, especially for those with a chronic pain condition. There are dozens of potential treatments for pain already, but researchers are always searching for a deeper understanding of pain to help them devise even better treatments. One group of researchers has found a way to cut off the communication of pain in the brain. At the University of Calgary’s Hotchkiss Brain Institute, neuroscientist Gerald Zamponi, phd, and his team…
Nearly everyone will experience head pain at some point during their lives, but for some people, head pain can become chronic. Chronic migraines and headaches can range in severity from annoying to debilitating. Thankfully, a wide range of treatment options are available for head pain, providing lots of potential options to try when managing head pain. Oral medications are usually the first type of pain management attempted to treat head pain. The most common reason…
Pain’s basic purpose is as a warning message for the body: that hurts, so stop it. When pain becomes chronic, though, it can seem utterly senseless, plaguing people for extended periods for no apparent reason. Researchers are constantly studying pain in hopes that a deeper understanding might lead to more effective prevention and treatment of pain. Research examines pain responses in infants Until recently, it was believed that babies didn’t experience pain in the same way…
Chronic pain is usually defined as pain that’s lasted for more than three months. This may not seem like a terribly long time–unless you’re the one in pain. When something hurts for so long, it can easily eat away at every aspect of a person’s life, from mood to friendships. The loss of a social life can have significant negative effects on a person’s chronic pain and general health. Not only can constant pain affect…
To most people, pain is usually nothing more than an annoyance–a twinge of back pain or a prickle of pain from a hangnail. For those who suffer from a chronic pain condition, however, it’s much more than an annoyance. When traditional treatment methods have failed and the pain persists, it might beg the question: why do we feel pain? Pain is an extremely important genetic adaptation. At its core, pain is a survival mechanism. It’s…
Almost everyone will experience a painful leg spasm at some point. These spasms, sometimes called “Charley horses,” are a painful contraction that can last from a few seconds to several minutes. Residual pain can linger for days. Spasms most often occur during intense activity, such as while running, or when a person is just dozing off or waking up. The muscles of the hands, arms, abdomen, or along the rib cage are all prone to spasms,…
In 2007, arthritis and conditions related to it cost the U.S. economy almost $128 billion in medical care and indirect expenses. The most widespread form of arthritis is osteoarthritis, which is sometimes called “wear and tear” arthritis. Osteoarthritis is characterized by the chronic degeneration of the cartilage that cushions our joints. This cartilage allows for easy, smooth movement. When cartilage is worn away, bone rubs directly on bone, causing pain, stiffness, inflammation, and tenderness. Weight-bearing…
Did you know that the majority of people who have had a limb amputated still report feeling some sensation in the removed limb, such as itching or tingling? As many as 80% of amputees experience a type of this phantom limb pain. This can manifest as almost any sort of pain, such as stabbing, throbbing, or burning. Pain can last anywhere from minutes to hours to days, with some amputees in constant pain for decades.…
Neuralgia is sharp, and often severe, pain that runs along the path of a nerve. The basic cause of neuralgia pain is damage or irritation of a nerve. This damage or irritation can be caused by several different conditions, from disease to trauma. Causes of neuralgia To understand the cause of neuralgia, it’s first necessary to understand how nerves work. The nervous system is responsible for carrying information back and forth from the brain to…
Imagine waking up with intense, burning pain for no reason, or undergoing surgery only to find that the accompanying pain increases and spreads until it forces the use of a wheelchair. Worse still, imagine spending months—or even years—going to physicians who are unable to diagnose the condition. This is the grim reality for people with complex regional pain syndrome. The symptoms of complex regional pain syndrome can be very different from person to person. Once…