Raise awareness about chronic illnesses by understanding their impact, symptoms, and the importance of support and education.
Gluten has been liked to more than 55 diseases and is often called the ‘big masquerader’. The reason for this is that the majority of symptoms of gluten intolerance are not digestive in nature but rather neurological such as pain, cognitive impairment, sleep disturbances, behavioral issues, fatigue, and depression. Adrenal Fatigue:Adrenal fatigue is a result of chronic stress whether real or perceived. Chronic pain is a stress to the adrenal glands, though typically not the…
Are you experiencing constant muscle pain and fatigue? There is a good chance that you are suffering from fibromyalgia. As many as 5 million Americans that are aged 18 or older are affected by it. Women are the primary targets of this chronic disease, affecting up to 90% of them, and it’s very hard to treat. For many years, research has pointed to this pain and fatigue just being “in the patient’s head.” It’s been…
The opioid crisis has revealed another real ongoing problem: a lot of people have chronic pain. For example, Lady Gaga recently revealed that she suffers from fibromyalgia, a chronic pain condition that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says afflicts 4 million people (or 2% of the adult population). This number may actually be an underestimate because determining the real number of people that have fibromyalgia can be a pain. Fibromyalgia is frequently underdiagnosed…
After months of speculation, a medical examiner has ruled that Tom Petty died of an accidental overdose, according to a statement from the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner. The Hall of Fame musician had taken several pain medications, including Fentanyl, oxycodone, and generic Xanax. Other medications included generic Restoril (a sleep aid) and generic Celexa (which treats depression). The Heartbreakers, Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Nicks, and more pay tribute to a genius craftsman who never stopped believing in…
People with hidden disabilities could soon be entitled to blue badge parking permits under Department for Transport (DfT) plans. The Government said the proposals would make it easier for people with conditions such as dementia, Fibromyalgia, Lupus, and autism to travel to work, socialize, and access shops and services. It is hoped the move – which would be the biggest change to the blue badge scheme since it was introduced in 1970 – would help…
This will be the first Christmas that Tammi Hale spends without her husband Doug in over 30 years. The 53-year old Vermont man, who suffered chronic pain from interstitial cystitis, committed suicide in October after his doctor abruptly cut him off from opioid pain medication. “His primary care provider kept trying to wean him off his opioid therapy, which worked at higher doses,” says Tammi. “My husband ran out (of medication) early a few times,…
It’s a trickle at present, but the conversation around chronic pain between doctors and patients is no longer one way only. Over the past few months, the constant messaging suggesting chronic pain patients are dying in dramatically increasing numbers because of opioid overdoses has been questioned. Understand, the messaging was indeed clever. Chronic pain patients weren’t directly and specifically named, but the messaging caused listeners and readers to believe it was pain patients whose lives…
A recent study threw up an interesting notion on the root of fibromyalgia. The study suggests that fibromyalgia could be caused by malfunctions in two chief body systems – the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) and the Hypothalamus-Pituitary-Adrenal Axis (HPA). These two body systems are key in regulating the production of important hormones and managing stress responses by the body. Imbalance in the two-body systems can lead to sleeplessness, lack of energy, higher pain sensitivity, mood…
Every so often he grabs his left shoulder and winces. It hurts when he walks when he sits still when he rises from his couch, and when he missteps in a damp meadow. More than hurts. It seems a kind of agony, though he never mentions it. There are times when he cannot help but show this, the fallout from a car accident four years ago, in which the car he was driving flipped and…
Lyrica is the brand name for a prescription medicine called pregabalin. Although it is an anticonvulsant or an anti-epileptic drug, pregabalin is commonly prescribed to alleviate nerve or neuropathic pain – a type of pain caused by damage to, or a disease affecting nerves. Neuropathic pain doesn’t normally respond to common painkillers such as ibuprofen or paracetamol. This is because the mechanisms that cause neuropathic pain are different from the underlying causes of other pain. History Pregabalin is closely related…