A comprehensive guide on chronic pain, its causes, symptoms, and effective management strategies to improve your quality of life.
When you drop something on your foot or slam your finger in a drawer, you know that pain will usually follow. Did you ever wonder why you feel that pain? Feeling pain in response to an injury is a signal that your body has been damaged in some way. Or, if you have an illness, headache, or another type of pain, it’s a signal to your brain that something is not right. Our nervous system is made up of…
Each year in the United States, millions of prescriptions are written for opioids to relieve chronic pain. When used appropriately, they can be a viable treatment option for some patients. But, there are health risks associated with the use of opioids. Concerns about opioid addiction have led to increased regulation and changes in opioid prescribing guidelines. With the current opioid epidemic in the United States, healthcare providers and their patients are increasingly seeking non-opioid pain relief options. Non-opioid…
Fibromyalgia was once dismissed by many traditional medical practitioners as a phantom illness. But that view is changing rapidly. Not only is fibromyalgia accepted as a diagnosable illness, it is also a syndrome that researchers are finding more complicated as new information emerges. As recently as a year ago, many physicians still associated some of fibromyalgia’s symptoms with emotional problems, but that’s no longer the case. Click Here to Visit the Store and find Much…
November is considered International Nerve Pain Awareness Month, or in simpler terms, NERVEmber. It is a time to bring awareness to complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) and the more than 150 other conditions with nerve pain as a symptom. Several landmarks across the country were lit up on November 5th to Color the World Orange, and members of the pain community will be wearing orange all month long to show support for those suffering from…
Needling Away at Lower Back Pain New research shows that the Chinese treatment known as acupuncture may help control lower back pain without the added side effects of many pain control medications. An ancient Eastern science that has been steadily gaining popularity in the West, acupuncture uses the relatively painless placement of tiny needles into various nerve pathways on the body to help stimulate the production of natural pain relievers called endorphins. Click Here to…
Back pain affects 80 percent of us at some point in our lives. The good news is that for many people suffering from low back pain, exercises to stretch the hip flexor muscles can help. The hip flexors are a group of muscles than run from your thighs all the way up to your low back. They include muscles with strange-sounding names such as the ilacus, the psoas, and the rectus femoris. As a group, these muscles let…
More Clues To Fibromyalgia Pain Fibromyalgia patients have more “connectivity” between brain networks and regions of the brain involved in pain processing, which may help explain why sufferers feel pain even when there is no obvious cause, a new study suggests. Researchers had 18 women with fibromyalgia undergo six-minute fMRI brain scans, and compared their results to women without the condition. Participants were asked to rate the intensity of the pain they were feeling at…
There’s no question about it, as we get older, our chances of suffering a painful medical condition go up. Some studies indicate that 50 percent of older adults live with chronic pain. The rate is even higher for those living in nursing homes. But we don’t have to just accept pain as part of our lives. In fact, we shouldn’t. Pain comes with its own damaging side effects. It makes it harder to stay active and get a…
Patients with fibromyalgia who are severely obese have more severe symptoms and lower quality of life (QOL), according to a study published in the February issue of Arthritis Care & Research. Chul-Hyun Kim, M.D., from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and associates measured body mass index (BMI) to determine its association with symptom severity and QOL in 888 patients in a treatment program for fibromyalgia. Participants completed the Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire (FIQ) and the…
Along with so many other fitness programs In this blog, we’ll be looking at the following: Click Here to Visit the Store and find Much More…. Why Is CrossFit Causing Back Pain? Are you feeling good about consistently going to your local CrossFit sessions but not so much about the lower back pain you’re feeling afterward? Well, you’re not alone. Plenty of CrossFit participants experience lower back pain, and we’re here to help you understand…