Category Archives: chronic pain

Treat Chronic Low Back Pain with Caution

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Chronic low back pain has plagued thousands of individuals for many years causing much pain and discomfort as well as time off from work or their daily routines. There has usually been the same traditional type of treatment methods and strategies to cure this painful problem. Recently, doctors have been notified of chronic low back pain treatment guidelines regarding the methods of low pain treatment.

The reasons for the chronic low back pain treatment guidelines is that there is a variety of different treatment methods and different costs, yet most of the results are the same. The American College of Physicians and the American Pain Society have made and entire group of chronic low back pain treatment guidelines for doctors to use with each patient. They want each patient to be treated differently based on certain factors.

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One of the factors in the chronic low back pain treatment guidelines states that the causes of the back pain should be put in specific categories such as mechanical back pain like vertebra, disc, facet joints, nerve root, spinous process and traverse process; congenital conditions like scoliosis; infections, tumors and diseases; and injuries like sports injuries or whiplash.
Prior to the setting of chronic low back pain treatment guidelines, almost all of these back problems were treated in the same variety of ways with usually the same results.

Another factor in the chronic low back pain treatment guidelines is that there should be certain criteria on if X-rays and other imaging tests will be taken on the patient. This criteria will depend on what kind of back pain the patient is suffering and why. Yet another factor is what type of back pain the patient should get certain medications prescribed and what kind they should be. Whether they are prescription, alternative, holistic, physical therapy or massage will be determined by what type works best for a specific back pain.

By using the chronic low back pain treatment guidelines, it is the hope that patients will be successfully treated for their back pain much sooner without having to go through so many different treatments. This will also save on medical bills and help keep health costs down. The rising cost of health care has been a problem steadily the past few years and hopefully these new guidelines will help the situation.

When these chronic low back pain treatment guidelines are used all the time, the patients will know what treatment they are getting and why they are getting it as well as understanding their case better.

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Low Back Pain

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The spine shown here with spinal cord.
Image via Wikipedia

Low back pain does not discriminate. It affects everyone, at any age, for a variety of reasons. Low back pain affects people’s work, daily routine, and recreation. Americans spend about $50 billion or more each year on low back pain. It is the most common reason for job related disability and is the leading contributor for missed work. Low back pain is also the second most common neurological illness in the United States, with headache being the most common. Thankfully, the majority of occurrences of low back pain disappear within a few days. Others lead to more serious conditions or even take much longer to clear up.

Short-term or acute low back pain lasts from a few days to a few weeks. Acute low back pain is automatic in nature, which is a result from any disorder like arthritis, or from trauma to the lower back. Trauma pain can be caused by sports injury, work in the garden or around the house, or sudden jolts from car accidents or other incidents, or other stress on the spinal tissues and bones. Symptoms of low back pain can range from muscle ache to stabbing or shooting pain, limited range of motion and flexibility, and even the inability to stand up straight. Sometimes, the pain felt in one part of the body can be from a disorder or injury elsewhere in the body. Acute pain syndromes can become much more serious if it goes untreated.

Bone strength and muscle elasticity and tone tend to decrease as people age. The discs in the back begin to lose flexibility and fluid, and that decreases the ability to cushion the vertebrae.

Low back pain can occur when someone overstretches or lifts something that is too heavy, causing strain, sprain, or spasm in one of the muscles or ligaments in the lower back. If the spine becomes overly strained or compressed, the disc that is affected can rupture or bulge outward. This rupture may put pressure on one of more than fifty nerves that are rooted to the spinal cord that control body movements and send signals from the body to the brain. When these nerve roots are compressed or irritated in any way, back pain, including low back pain, can occur.

Low back pain can reflect muscle or nerve irritation or bone lesions. While often times, low back pain follows injury or trauma to the back, it can also be caused by viral infections, irritation to joints and discs, degenerative conditions such as disc disease or arthritis, osteoporosis or other bone diseases, or congenital abnormalities of the spine. Smoking, obesity, weight gain during pregnancy, poor physical condition, stress, bad posture for the activity being performed, and even poor sleeping positions can contribute to low back pain. In addition, scar tissue from a previously injured back does not have the flexibility or strength of normal, healthy tissue. Build up of this scar tissue from previous injuries will weaken the back and lead to more serious injury.

Sometimes low back pain may mean a more serious medical problem. Pain that is accompanied by fever or loss of bladder or bowel control, pain when coughing, and weakness in the legs may indicate a pinched nerve or other serious problem. Diabetics can have severe low back pain or leg pains related to neuropathy. Those with these symptoms should contact their doctor to help prevent more permanent damage.

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Suffer From Chronic Pain, Depression And Illness?

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People who were happy, healthy and vital experience chronic symptoms that put an end to their activity. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome seems to take all your energy away and it often lasts for years.

The symptoms include similar symptoms to flu, fatigue that doesn’t get better with sleep and actually gets worse with physical or mental activity. The symptoms may appear and then disappear and there seems to be no pattern. Whereas people recover from flu and it goes away in days or weeks, CFS just seems to go on and on.

According to Center for Disease Control (CDC) between one and four million Americans suffer from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). They are seriously impaired, at least a quarter are unemployed or on disability because of CFS. Forty percent of people in the general population who report symptoms of CFS have a serious, treatable, previously unrecognized medical condition.

Chronic fatigue syndrome may precipitate after an infection, such as a cold or viral illness or after a time of great stress. It can also come on gradually without a clear starting point or obvious cause. Women are diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome far more often than men are.

The conventional approach to handling CFS is psychological counseling (It’s all in your head type approach), rehabilitation with physical therapy and exercise. Other professionals like a sleep therapist or dietitian can also be called in. The patient usually has to learn to just live with it once all else has failed to relieve the misery of CFS.

But the condition is not all in your head. You don’t have to live with it, and alternative medicine offers help by finding an underlying cause and a natural remedy. The disease can be stopped and symptoms reversed. The results are available, and you can regain your energetic lifestyle.

A very important factor in treating both fibromyalgia and CFS is diet. You can eat foods that alleviate pain and depression or you can eat foods that exacerbate pain and depression. Eating refined carbohydrates will worsen both conditions, and eating slow-burning carbohydrates high in fiber will improve it. Pain is increased when consuming saturated fats and refined vegetable oils, and decreased when consuming omega-3 faty acids instead. How you feel is very much related to what you eat.

Food allergies are often missed as a cause of CFS and fibromyalgia. A competent doctor can evaluate for food allergies.

Many patients with fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue suffer from depression. They also tend to have low levels of the neuro-transmitter serotonin, which plays a crucial role in regulating mood. In addition to contributing to depression, low levels of serotonin can cause the sensation of pain to be greatly heightened. Natural supplements can boost seratonin levels, improve mood and relieve pain. St. John’s wort, SAMe, and 5-HTP are some of the natural remedies that are much safer than Prozac or other prescription anti-depressants and do not have the harmful side effects of pharmaceuticals. They are backed by solid research and positive experiences of patients.

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Do You Suffer From Toothache? You Don’t Need To.

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Are you a toothache sufferer? If you are you know it can be debilitating and depressing. Toothache can cause the sufferer some intense pain and can be very distressing.

But what is a toothache and what causes it. It seems simple to ask that question, and with a simple answer. It’s just a tooth that hurts. And it certainly is. But that doesn’t describe how serious the problem is for the sufferer. And it doesn’t describe how intense the pain can be.

And that simple explanation doesn’t really tell you how something as simple as a tooth that hurts can impact on so many areas of your life.

And it can describe different things. For example there is tooth “sensitivity” that feels pretty much like pain in the teeth. Sensitivity can be caused by a number of factors like excessive wear on the teeth from grinding the teeth at night. Or by recession of the gum that exposes more of the outer layer of the tooth to the effects of hot and cold food particularly.

And there can be many other factors. A cracked tooth for example, or flu, or sinus problems or gingivitis. Gingivitis is a condition where the gum draws back from the edges of the teeth following the build up of tartar, usually because of inadequate brushing.

A leading cause of tooth loss in the US is gum disease that can itself cause a range of dental problems including toothache.

And there are some medical conditions that you would never have thought could cause toothache but can do so. Like Angina.

If you suffer from toothache you ought to be aware that serious medical and dental conditions can be the cause, and you ought to have these diagnosed and treated by a doctor or dentist.

However it is still possible to reduce the pain, or even eliminate it, if you’re in need of doing so, by use of some simple home remedies. This may not be a permanent solution in many cases but may well provide some much needed relief while you’re waiting for the condition to be diagnosed.

And it may surprise you to know how simple and effective some of these simple home remedies for toothache are.

So if you’re in the throes of toothache you need the problem diagnosed but you don’t need to feel the pain. Usually the use of painkilling drugs can be avoided by some simple and cheap home remedies.

And this is essential to you if you need to perform. You can’t perform at your peak with toothache.

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Peter offers a book which you can get at his website about Toothache Home Remedies full of tips and tricks and Home Remedies for Toothache

Do You Know What Food Causes Your Gout?

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by Paul Forcey

If your kidneys are unable to deal with all the uric acid that you ingest then they will turn it into crystals and send it off round your body. This is the starting point that ends up in the agony that is gout.

One of the leading causes of increased uric acid is eating foods containing increased levels of purines. Over a period of time, the uric acid that isn’t expelled turns into sharp crystals that get stored in the body and find their way into the joints.

Most people want a quick fix for any problem, when dealing with medical situations such as gout this isn’t always possible or advisable. Your gout didn’t really appear overnight, it has taken months and probably years of eating the wrong things possibly coupled with a genetic predisposition to appear. So expecting your gout to just be fixed instantly is unrealistic isn’t it.

You can control the amount of purines that enter your body, just give more thought to what you eat. If you eat foods that are low in purines then your body won’t create so much uric acid and your kidneys won’t have to work so hard to remove it from your system.

While drinking alcohol may give you some instant temporary feeling of pleasure it can be a contributing cause for gout attacks. Your kidneys have to work hard to deal with alcohol and the high amount of purines that it contains, add this to some rich red meat and your kidneys won’t be able to keep up and will be expelling more uric acid into your body.

If you are unsure of what to eat when you are trying to reduce the severity and regularity of your gout attacks you should start keeping a diary of what you eat and drink. This will help give you some idea of the items that may be contributing to your pain. Shellfish, red meat, alcohol and game meats are things that you should remove from your diet straight away before you even start making notes.

In contrast, cherries, especially the blue and darker red or bluish cherries, have been known to lower the level of uric acid. Cherries are rich in flavonoids which are natures healing elements. They are also thought to stop the pain that goes with an attack of gout.Studies also seem to indicate that dandelion may have medicinal properties against uric acid build up.

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