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The Use of Pain Scrambler for Chemotherapy-Induced Pain in Cancer Patients

Cancer is one of the most challenging diseases. It can completely change your life and the treatments can be brutal at times. While Chemotherapy helps fight cancer and bring healing to patients, it also has many side effects, including fatigue, vomiting, diarrhea, infections, hair loss, and peripheral neuropathy pain.

Over time, as chemotherapy increases, these side effects also tend to increase. So what can you do to counter these side effects and ease the pain? Calmare “Pain Scrambler” Therapy can ease the pain caused by chemotherapy and other cancer treatments.

How Does It Work

One of the most painful side effects of Chemotherapy is peripheral neuropathy pain, which comes in different forms including tingling, burning sensation, and pain in hands and feet.

Patients who use the Pain Scrambler to combat side effects of chemotherapy have found relief, especially from the pain of peripheral neuropathy pain.

How Long Does It Take to Find Relief

While Carolina Pain Scrambler can begin to deliver pain relief in just one treatment, the best results have shown from cumulative treatments over 10-12 sessions.

Each session lasts about 45 minutes, and the pain-free interval can last up to several months, depending on the severity and cause of initial pain.

Are There Side Effects?

Many cancer patients have found pain relief with Pain Scrambler therapy, with no apparent side effects. What’s more, the Pain Scrambler has reduced the need for many patients to continue taking opioids and other pain medications, further lessening the side effects of those medications. It’s worth noting that reduced pain caused by chemotherapy can even help patients endure their consistent chemotherapy treatments over time.

Final Thoughts

Our goal is to create a better quality of life for patients experiencing nerve pain, including cancer patients! The Pain Scrambler uses electrodes placed on the skin, and reduces pain signals sent to the brain. Continued treatment helps reduce overall pain for chemotherapy patients, and there is no other treatment as effective or safe for peripheral neuropathy pain.

If you or someone you know would like to experience immediate relief from chronic pain, please contact us today.

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What Is Pain Scrambler Therapy?

The unfortunate reality is that many of us have either experienced debilitating & chronic neuropathic pain or know someone who has. It’s not easy to live with and it can greatly affect your overall quality of life.

For those dealing with chronic pain, it can be hard to complete even the most simple day-to-day tasks or even find joy in playing with the grandchildren.

How do you deal with it? Traditional prescription pain management can often consist of replacing the pain with all kinds of potential side effects like diarrhea, dizziness, fatigue, heart issues, nausea, rash, constipation, headache, insomnia. These are just a few of the milder side effects of prescription pills.

Instead of swapping pain for pain, there are alternative paths to neuropathic and oncologic pain relief to consider.

Alternatives to Prescription Pain Management

Since chronic pain varies, there are several treatment options available as alternatives to prescription pain management. It’s important to consider many factors when making this decision, including the cause of pain, location of the pain, and duration of the pain. They are much safer approaches to pain than prescription drugs that also have longer lasting effects overall. Well-known modern alternative treatments include acupuncture, chiropractic care, massage therapy, yoga, and aromatherapy, to name a few.

Acupuncture is known to relieve neck and lower back pain, osteoarthritis, and migraines. While
Chiropractic care can help relieve neck and back pain, headaches, and muscle pain.

These types of treatments and therapies have been proven successful in providing pain relief for certain types of pain, but what about chronic neuropathy?

For neuropathic pain relief, the best choice is Calmare Pain Scrambler Therapy, which is becoming much more well-known throughout the United States and Europe because of its amazing results in treating chronic neuropathic pain.

What Is Pain Scrambler Therapy?

The Calmare Scrambler Therapy device, commonly known as a Pain Scrambler, treats nerve pain as an alternative to prescription pain management. The device uses a biophysical approach rather than a more common biochemical approach, treating the root of the pain and providing rapid pain relief.

The Pain Scrambler creates and sends a no-pain signal through multiple surface electrodes placed on the skin. This signal becomes the dominant signal received by the brain, overriding the pain signal and providing extended relief of pain.

Patients experiencing chronic neck and back pain or pain from cancer and chemotherapy, as well as chronic conditions such as diabetic peripheral neuropathy, sciatica, CRPS, and more have been successfully treated with Scrambler Therapy treatments.

Pain Scrambler Therapy is safe and highly effective. Over 80% of patients treated have had extremely reduced pain. Some patients are even permanently pain-free after just 10-12 sessions!

Is This Treatment Safe?

This type of therapy offers pain relief and control without the potentially dangerous side effects of prescription drugs. While the therapy is relatively new and cutting edge, The Calmare Therapy device has successfully treated over 7,000 patients and has become known for its success in treating neuropathic and oncologic pain.

In fact, Scrambler Therapy has been cleared by the FDA in the United States and Europe in 2009, and awareness of this highly effective treatment is growing rapidly. This has been found to be the safest and most effective treatment for neuropathic pain.

What Does The Treatment Plan Consist Of?

The best results of Calmare Scrambler Therapy are often achieved over multiple treatment sessions. While the Carolina Pain Scrambler Center can begin to deliver pain relief in just one treatment, the best results have shown from cumulative treatments over 10-12 sessions.

Each session lasts about 45 minutes, and the pain-free interval can last up to several months, depending on the severity and cause of initial pain.

In between sessions, if the severity of pain was fairly high, periodic booster treatments may be needed. This is especially true for anyone experiencing the recurrence of pain. Over time, after a series of treatments with Calmare Scrambler Therapy, patients typically experience a gradual decrease in overall pain.

Conclusion

If you are tired of living with pain day in and day out, or if you’re ready to say goodbye to ongoing use of prescription medication, and you are looking for a safe and effective way to rid yourself of your chronic nerve pain for good, we believe you would be a great candidate for our therapy.

Calmare Pain Scrambler Therapy has helped many patients be able to get back to truly living.

Wouldn’t it be nice to be living pain-free once again?

We would love to answer any questions you may have about The Pain Scrambler. Contact us today if you’re ready to improve your health and experience a pain-free life!

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Postherpetic Neuralgia

Postherpetic Neuralgia

What Is Postherpetic Neuralgia?
Postherpetic neuralgia is a painful condition that affects your nerves and skin. It is a complication of herpes zoster, commonly called shingles.
Shingles is a painful, blistering skin rash caused by a reactivation of a virus called varicella-zoster, which people usually get in childhood or adolescence as chicken pox. The virus can remain dormant in your body’s nerve cells after childhood and can reactivate years later.
When the pain caused by shingles doesn’t go away after the rash and blisters clear up, the condition is called postherpetic neuralgia. Postherpetic neuralgia is the most common complication of shingles, and it occurs when a person’s nerves are damaged during a shingles outbreak. The damaged nerves can’t send messages from the skin to the brain and the messages become confused, resulting in chronic, severe pain that can last for months or years.
According to a study by the American Academy of Family Physicians, about 20 percent of people who get shingles also develop postherpetic neuralgia. Additionally, this condition is more likely to occur in people over the age of 60.
What Are the Symptoms of Postherpetic Neuralgia?
Shingles typically causes a painful, blistering rash. Postherpetic neuralgia is a complication that only occurs in people who already have had shingles. Common signs and symptoms of postherpetic neuralgia include:
severe pain that continues for more than one to three months in the same place that the shingles occurred, even after the rash goes away
burning sensation on the skin, even from the slightest pressure
sensitivity to touch or temperature changes

What Are the Risk Factors for Postherpetic Neuralgia?
Age is a high risk factor for getting both shingles and postherpetic neuralgia. People over 60 have an increased risk, and people over 70 have an even higher risk.
Those who have acute pain and severe rash during shingles are also at a higher risk of developing postherpetic neuralgia.
People with lowered immunity due to disorders like HIV infection and Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a type of cancer, have an increased risk of developing shingles. A study by the American Academy of Family Physicians shows that the incidence of shingles is up to 15 times greater in patients with HIV than in those who don’t have the virus.

 

How Is Postherpetic Neuralgia Diagnosed and Treated?
Tests are unnecessary. Most of the time, your doctor will diagnose postherpetic neuralgia based on the duration of pain symptoms following shingles.
Treatment for postherpetic neuralgia aims to control and reduce pain until the condition goes away. Pain therapy may include the following treatments.
Analgesics
Painkillers are also known as analgesics. Common analgesics used for postherpetic neuralgia include:
capsaicin cream: an analgesic extracted from hot chili peppers
lidocaine patches, a numbing medicine
over-the-counter medications such as acetaminophen (Tylenol), or ibuprofen (Advil)
stronger prescription drugs, such as codeine, hydrocodone, or oxycodone
Tricyclic Antidepressants
Tricyclic antidepressants are normally prescribed to treat depression, but they are also effective in treating pain caused by postherpetic neuralgia. They often have side effects, like dry mouth and blurred vision. They do not act as quickly as other types of painkillers. Commonly used tricyclic antidepressants to treat postherpetic neuralgia include:
amitriptyline (Elavil)
desipramine (Norpramin)
imipramine (Tofranil)
nortriptyline (Pamelor)
Anticonvulsants
Anticonvulsants are normally used for seizures, however clinical studies have shown that lower doses can be effective in treating pain for postherpetic neuralgia as well. Commonly used anticonvulsants include
carbamazepine (Tegretol)
pregabalin (Lyrica)
gabapentin (Neurontin)
phenytoin (Dilantin)

How Can Postherpetic Neuralgia Be Prevented?
A herpes zoster vaccine called Zostavax reduces the risk of shingles by 50 percent, and also protects against postherpetic neuralgia. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Trusted Source
recommends that the vaccine be given to all adults over the age of 60, except for people with a weakened immune system. These people may be advised not to receive the vaccine because it contains a live virus.
The herpes zoster vaccine, Zostavax, is different from the chicken pox vaccine, Varivax, that is usually given to children. Zostavax has at least 14 times more live varicella viruses than Varivax. Zostavax can’t be used in children, and Varivax can’t be used to prevent herpes zoster.

Outlook
Painful, postherpetic neuralgia is treatable and preventable. Most cases disappear in one to two months, and rare cases last longer than a year.
If you’re over the age of 60, it’s wise to get vaccinated against it. If you do develop it, there are many analgesics and even antidepressants you can take to manage the pain. It may just take some time and patience.

Article Provided By: healthline

Carolina Pain Scrambler Logo, Chronic Pain, Greenville, SCIf you would like to discuss what Carolina Pain Scrambler do to help relieve your chronic pain symptoms or receive more information on our treatment process, please do not hesitate to call us at 864-520-5011  or you can email us at info@carolinapainscrambler.com

 

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Chemotherapy-Induced Peripheral Neuropathy

Chemotherapy-Induced Peripheral Neuropathy
Timothy J Brown, MD; Ramy Sedhom, MD; Arjun Gupta, MD
Article Information
JAMA Oncol. 2019;5(5):750. doi:10.1001/jamaoncol.2018.6771

Peripheral neuropathy refers to symptoms arising from damage to peripheral nerves. These nerves carry sensation, control movements of the arms and legs, and control the bladder and bowel. Chemotherapy and other drugs used to treat cancer can cause peripheral neuropathy. This is termed chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (or CIPN).

What Increases the Risk of Developing CIPN?
Certain chemotherapy drugs are more likely to cause neuropathy. These include: platinum drugs, such as oxaliplatin; taxanes, such as docetaxel; vinca alkaloids, such as vincristine; and myeloma treatments, such as bortezomib.
Other chemotherapy drugs can also cause neuropathy. The risk of developing CIPN is higher with higher doses, multiple courses, and combination chemotherapy. Patients are more likely to develop CIPN if they are older or have diabetes, vitamin deficiencies, or preexisting peripheral neuropathy.
How Can I Reduce My Risk of Developing CIPN?
No medication or supplement has been shown to definitively prevent CIPN. Regular exercise, reducing alcohol use, and treating preexisting medical conditions (vitamin B12 deficiency) may reduce the risk of CIPN.
What Are the Symptoms and Complications of CIPN?
Depending on the nerves affected, symptoms include:

Tingling (“pins and needles”)
Pain, which may be severe and constant, may come and go, or may feel like burning
Decreased sensation (“legs feel like jelly”)
Increased sensitivity to touch, temperature, pressure, pain
Muscle weakness

Symptoms can appear hours to days after chemotherapy and may reduce in intensity with time. Commonly, symptoms occur weeks to months after chemotherapy. They can get worse with additional cycles of chemotherapy.
What Should I Do If I Develop Symptoms?
You should notify your care team. Symptoms are likely to worsen if not addressed. Your oncologist can diagnose CIPN based on symptoms and by examining you. Specialized testing is rarely needed.
I Have CIPN—What Now?
One should avoid injury by paying attention to home safety, such as by using handrails on stairs to prevent falls and potholders in the kitchen to avoid burns. Your oncologist may choose to discontinue or reduce the dose of a chemotherapy drug. Your oncologist may recommend over-the-counter pain medications, lidocaine patches, menthol creams, or a medication called duloxetine. Physical therapy, occupational therapy, and rehabilitation may be helpful to regain function. Studies are researching how novel therapies (biofeedback or scrambler therapy) can help. Improvements in function may be gradual. In some cases, nerve damage may be permanent.

Article Provided By: JAMA

 

IfCarolina Pain Scrambler Logo, Chronic Pain, Greenville, SC you would like to discuss what Carolina Pain Scrambler do to help relieve your chronic pain symptoms or receive more information on our treatment process, please do not hesitate to call us at 864-520-5011 or you can email us at info@carolinapainscrambler.com

 

 

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Nerve Pain Therapy, Pain Therapy, Chronic Pain, Calmare Scrambler, Chronic Pain Therapy, Neuropathic Pain Therapy, Greenville SC

Sacroiliac Joint Dysfunction

Sacroiliac Joint Dysfunction

Dysfunction in the sacroiliac joint is thought to cause low back pain and/or leg pain. The leg pain can be particularly difficult and may feel similar to sciatica or pain caused by a lumbar disc herniation. The sacroiliac joint lies next to the bottom of the spine, below the lumbar spine and above the tailbone (coccyx). It connects the sacrum (the triangular bone at the bottom of the spine) with the pelvis (iliac crest).

The joint typically has the following characteristics:

  • Small and very strong, reinforced by strong ligaments that surround it
  • Does not have much motion
  • Transmits all the forces of the upper body to the pelvis (hips) and legs
  • Acts as a shock-absorbing structure

Symptoms

The most common symptoms for patients are lower back pain and the following sensations in the lower extremity: pain, numbness, tingling, weakness, pelvis/buttock pain, hip/groin pain, feeling of leg instability (buckling, giving way), disturbed sleep patterns, disturbed sitting patterns (unable to sit for long periods, sitting on one side), pain going from sitting to standing.


Causes and Risk Factors

While it is not clear how the pain is caused, it is thought that an alteration in the normal joint motion may be the culprit that causes sacroiliac pain. This source of pain can be caused by either:

Too much movement (hypermobility or instability): The pain is typically felt in the lower back and/or hip and may radiate into the groin area.

Too little movement (hypomobility or fixation): The pain is typically felt on one side of the lower back or buttocks and can radiate down the leg. The pain usually remains above the knee, but at times pain can extend to the ankle or foot. The pain is similar to sciatica — or pain that radiates down the sciatic nerve — and is caused by a radiculopathy.

Diagnosis

Accurately diagnosing sacroiliac joint dysfunction can be difficult because the symptoms mimic other common conditions, including other mechanical back pain conditions like facet syndrome and lumbar spine conditions including disc herniation and radiculopathy (pain along the sciatic nerve that radiates down the leg). A diagnosis is usually arrived at through physical examination (eliminating other causes) and/or an injection (utilized to block the pain).

Treatments

Treatments for sacroiliac joint dysfunction are usually conservative (meaning nonsurgical) and focus on trying to restore normal motion in the joint:

  • Ice, heat and rest.
  • Medications: acetaminophen, as well as anti-inflammatory medications (such as ibuprofen or naproxen) to reduce the swelling that is usually contributing to the patient’s pain.
  • Manual manipulation provided by a chiropractor, osteopathic doctor or other qualified health practitioner may help. This can be highly effective when the sacroiliac joint is fixated or “stuck.” It may be irritating if the sacroiliac joint is hypermobile. The manipulation is accomplished through a number of methods, including (but not limited to): side-posture manipulation, drop technique, blocking techniques and instrument-guided methods.
  • Supports or braces for when the sacroiliac joint is “hypermobile,” or too loose.
  • Controlled, gradual physical therapy may be helpful to strengthen the muscles around the sacroiliac joint and appropriately increase range of motion. In addition, any type of gentle, low-impact aerobic exercise will help increase the flow of blood to the area, which in turn stimulates a healing response. For severe pain, water therapy may be an option, as the water provides buoyancy for the body and reduces stress on the painful joint.
  • Sacroiliac joint injections.

When these treatments fail, surgery may be offered. In surgery, one or both of the sacroiliac joints may be fused with the goal of eliminating any abnormal motion.

Article Provided By: Cedars-Sinai

Back Pain Relief, Nerve Pain Treatment, Pain Relief, Perpipheral, Greenville, South Carolina

Adopting an Attitude that You’re Healthy

Adopting an Attitude that You’re Healthy despite having Chronic Pain: Coping with Pain Series

Chronic pain rehabilitation programs are a traditional and effective treatment for chronic pain. Such programs are based on cognitive-behavioral principles that aim to change how you experience pain. By doing so, chronic pain rehabilitation programs help you to a) reduce pain and b) return to meaningful life activities even though some level of pain may persist. In other words, by participating in chronic pain rehabilitation, you change your relationship to chronic pain. You no longer perceive pain as an alarming and disabling condition, but develop the know-how to understand your pain as a benign condition that no longer needs to disrupt or prevent your daily life activities.

Wouldn’t it be good to become so competent at dealing with persistent pain that you no longer are disabled by it?

Pain would continue to occur, of course, but it would now be occurring in the background of your day-to-day life. The reasonable activities of life, like work and family activities, would become what occupies your time and attention, not pain. Again, wouldn’t it be good to learn how to do it?

Everyday, people with moderate to severe chronic pain learn to do it in chronic pain rehabilitation programss across the world.

There are countless strategies for coping better with pain, which can be learned in chronic pain rehabilitation programs. One strategy, which has been taught ever since there have been such programs, is to adopt an attitude that you remain a healthy person even though you have chronic pain. By assuming this attitude, you come to change your understanding of how you should relate to chronic, or persistent, pain.

Do you remain a healthy person when having persistent pain?

Like many questions in life, the answer to the above question depends on whom you ask. There may or may not be a universally correct answer for all people across all conditions and all situations. Pragmatically, however, the answer is important because it can determine how well you cope with persistent pain.

Many people with persistent pain consider themselves injured or ill. It’s common, for instance, for those with chronic low back or neck pain to think of themselves as injured. Another possibility is that individuals with such pain might have been told they have degenerative disc disease and as such they consider themselves to have a disease of the spine. Still others might consider migraine headache (aka, “sick headache”) or fibromyalgia as an illness. In all these scenarios of thinking of pain as the result of injury or illness, the implication is that you are unhealthy.

Indeed, this way of understanding pain goes hand in hand with seeking healthcare for it. It’s what sick or injured people do. You go to the doctor in order to get better. In this light, pain medications are often thought of as “medicine”.

It can also lead those who conceptualize chronic pain in this manner to engage in other behaviors associated with injury or illness, such as stopping life activities, staying home from work, and resting. It’s what injured or sick people do to get healthier, right?

Together, these beliefs and behaviors make up what’s called the sick role. They are the normal ways of understanding yourself as injured or ill and therefore what you do when you think of yourself in this manner.

Is there really any other way of thinking about it?

For many, this way of relating to chronic pain doesn’t involve a choice. It’s just how they experience pain. The presence of pain is simply and necessarily a sign of injury or illness for which there is nothing you can do but stay home and remain inactive. It’s never questioned and when it is, such questioning is perceived as invalidating or stigmatizing the reality of the pain as it is experienced.

This way of experiencing pain is apparent when people express such beliefs as “I can’t work” or “I can’t go to my kids ball game this afternoon” or “I have to take pain medicines.” For them, the presence of pain requires certain behaviors like staying home and resting or taking pain medicines. Open discussion of other possible ways of reacting to pain is perceived with skepticism at best and as invalidating or stigmatizing at worst. “You just don’t understand,” they might say. There really is nothing else they might do in the presence of pain, for its very experience requires that one must stay home, rest or take pain medicines. It’s just how it is.

What we are trying to articulate is the underlying conceptual framework or categories through which people experience pain.

Or, more specifically, we’re trying to articulate the conceptual lens through which some people experience pain (see also, Jensen, et al, 1999).

Do all people experience persistent pain in this manner?

While the above noted ways of experiencing pain are common, they are not universal to all people with chronic pain. We know, for instance, from empirical research but also from everyday experience, that some people with moderate to severe pain don’t take opioid pain medicines or don’t perceive themselves as disabled and so remain at work (see, for example, this article here).

For them, the presence of pain doesn’t rise to any level of urgency that requires action. It’s experienced as inconvenient or bothersome, but largely normal. “It’s just what happens when you get old” or “My migraines are a barometer that tells me I’m not taking care of myself very well” or “I heard that back pain is just something we have because early humans stood up on two feet” or “Doesn’t everybody have back pain?” Notice the lack of alarm or urgency with which these people experience pain. They have pain, but there’s no need to do anything about it. They accept it as normal. They don’t enjoy it, of course, but neither are they distressed by it. Pain is something we have and it’s accepted as a bothersome fact of life that we put up with.

One way in which people experience pain in this manner is that they don’t understand pain as a health problem. In other words, pain lies outside of the conceptual categories of health or disease or injury. For them, knees and hips and backs and stomachs and necks and heads hurt because that’s how we’re made. It just comes with the territory of playing sports or getting older or getting stressed. It’s the given. It’s not abnormal. It’s normal.

This conceptual lens through which they perceive pain has for them no bearing on whether they are healthy or not. They might, for instance, consider themselves healthy even though they have to mind their persistent knee pain because of the sports they play. Indeed, the presence of chronic pain can sometimes serve as the cause of maintaining a healthy lifestyle. “I have a desk job and so when I sit all the time my back tends to hurt a lot and so it makes me insistent that I block my lunch hour so that I can walk everyday.” “I’m prone to migraines, almost everyone in my family gets them, and so I really have to stay on top of my stress and get regular exercise.”

Notice in these scenarios that pain isn’t understood as in itself an injury or illness. Rather, it’s due to playing sports or sitting too much or getting older or having too much stress. These ways of understanding pain don’t lead to illness behaviors such as staying home or resting or taking pain medicines. Indeed, it just might never occur to them that they should respond to their pain by staying home or taking pain medicine.

To learn to cope better, you have to be open to learning how

What we are trying to do in this discussion of contrasting experiences of pain is to articulate the underlying conceptual frameworks with which people understand pain. Pain is a complex subjective experience and we are attempting to make apparent the possible differences in the subjectivity of these experiences. Pain may be a universally human sensation, but it is subjectively experienced differently by different people in part because different people perceive pain through different conceptual frameworks.

For some, the sensation falls into the categories of injury or illness and poor health. From this way of understanding and perceiving pain, pain is an abnormal sensation that requires actions that sick or injured people do: seeking the advice of healthcare providers, getting tests and medical procedures, staying home from work, resting and taking medicines.

For still others, the sensation of pain falls into different conceptual categories, such as a sign of a hard fought sports game or getting really good work outs or getting older or sitting too much or having too much stress. From these ways of experiencing the sensation, there’s no sense of urgency to do something about it. It’s because they are understood as normal experiences.

The observation of these differences involves no intention to stigmatize. There are times, of course, when pain is due to injury or illness. Acute pain, for instance, is commonly the result of an acute injury or illness. So, it is not inherently wrong to conceptualize pain within the frameworks of injury or illness.

Not all pain, however, falls into these categories and it is sometimes in the best interest of those with chronic, or persistent, pain to begin to understand their pain differently.

It’s possible to learn how to experience pain differently. You have to be open to learning and it helps if you can learn from teachers or coaches within a non-judgmental or stigma-free environment. People with moderate to severe chronic pain learn everyday in chronic pain rehabilitation programs across the world.

Adopting an attitude that you remain healthy despite persistent pain

More often than not, if you see healthcare providers for chronic pain, they will encourage you to remain active, use the painful body part, exercise, manage your stress, stay at work, and try not to take opioid pain medications. Sound familiar? Despite these common recommendations, there’s often little instruction as to how to do these things when actually having pain. In fact, it almost seems impossible because the presence of pain seems to demand that you rest, guard or stay off the painful body part, stay home and take pain medicines. So impossible, it seems, that maybe they don’t really get how much pain you have or otherwise they wouldn’t recommend doing things that you know you can’t do.

With the discussion above, however, we can now begin to articulate how you might actually go about engaging in these recommendations, despite how impossible it might seem at first. It starts with adopting an attitude that you are healthy even though you have chronic pain.

Begin by reflecting on this essay. Consider the possibility that understanding your chronic pain as a long-lasting injury or illness leads naturally to behaviors that healthcare providers recommend against doing: staying home from work, resting, guarding the painful body part, taking pain medicines. This combination of beliefs, perceptions and behaviors lead to what we call identifying with the sick role. It puts you in a dependent role to your healthcare providers, on whom you rely to make you better. It also often puts you in a dependent role to family members, on whom you rely to take up the slack of what you can’t do. However, healthcare providers don’t have many effective ways to make you better, short of helping you to engage in the above recommendations. Reliance on family can foster guilt in you or increased stress and conflict with them. So, in all, experiencing pain through the lens of the sick role doesn’t typically amount to much improvement and sometimes it can even make your overall situation in life worse.

Maybe, then, it’s time to re-think how you think about pain.

Once you decide that it is in your interest to be open to learning new ways to respond to pain, then practice thinking of yourself as a healthy person with persistent pain. Recognize that healthy people have pain, even persistent, or chronic, pain. Low back pain, for instance, is by far the most common form of chronic pain and to manage it well you have to engage in behaviors that healthy people do – stay active, remain at work, use your back, get regular exercise, manage your stress, and maintain a healthy weight.

To adopt the attitude that you remain healthy despite having persistent pain, it helps to recognize that persistent pain is common. A third or more of the population has persistent pain. As we age, pain becomes increasingly more common (Fayaz, et al., 2016). It isn’t, therefore, abnormal to have chronic pain.

From this understanding, the occurrence of persistent back, neck, joint or head pain doesn’t have to be cause for alarm. It’s not signaling a state of urgency. Pain can be accepted as a fact of life. Many of us, as we get older, have a harder time keeping weight off. This biological condition isn’t a pathological condition of illness, but rather just something that is accepted. Most forms of chronic pain can be considered in a similar light – not something that is a pathological condition of illness or injury, but just something that tends to happen. It may occur because of sedentary lifestyles or sports activities or age or stress or maybe we don’t even question why because it happens to so many of us. From this way of understanding it, pain isn’t abnormal and it’s not alarming, but just bothersome.

This way of experiencing pain seems considerably more preferable than experiencing it as an abnormal and alarming event for which valued life activities must be given up. Rather, pain is something for which you stay active. Motion is lotion, as the old saying goes. Experiencing it this way, pain persists, but occurs in the background of daily life in which you stay active, remain at work, get regular exercise, manage your stress, maintain a healthy weight, and otherwise engage in the healthy behaviors of the healthy person you are.

Now that’s what really good pain management looks like.

Article Provided By: Institute for Chronic Pain

Carolina Pain Scrambler Logo, Chronic Pain, Greenville, SC
If you would like to discuss what Carolina Pain Scrambler do to help relieve your chronic pain symptoms or receive more information on our treatment
process, please do not hesitate to call us at 864-520-5011 or you can email us at info@carolinapainscrambler.com
Pain Management, Chronic Pain, Nerve Pain Treatment, Pain Therapy, Chemotherapy, South Carolina

5 Ways to Boost Your Pain Management

Right about now there is a good chance that you have been thinking about ways you might “hit the refresh button” on your pain management approach in the coming year. As you’re thinking about what you’d like to change, make sure that whatever goal you’re shooting for is both impactful and sustainable.

And, as with starting anything new, try to set yourself up for success. First off, make it easy to do. Look for options that are not too time-consuming or taxing. Seek out strategies or therapies that you can ease yourself into, one step at a time. Also, keep your plan affordable and try to get as much value as possible out of the time and money that you spend. And try to make it fun. The more enjoyment, inspiration, and fulfillment that you get out of whatever you do, the more likely you are to make it a lasting part of your routine.

Now let’s look at some easy ways you can spruce up your approach toward making chronic pain more manageable and better controlled –

  • Unplug an hour earlier. Research has shown that when we sleep better at night, we experience less pain during the day. I also know that one of the most frequent complaints I hear from my patients is that they just don’t sleep well at all. While there are many strategies that can improve sleep, an easy one to try is to simply disconnect from your smart phone an hour earlier at night. Stopping whatever stimulation and agitation that you could get from looking at emails or social media well in advance of bedtime helps the mind and body wind down to fall asleep more easily.
  • Download a meditation app. Over the last several years, a number of studies have found that meditation can play an important role in pain relief. But finding the time and inclination for meditation in our busy and over-stimulated culture can be a real challenge. While attending an 8-week mindfulness course can have serious benefit, that is not something most folks can commit to. But downloading a meditation app, most of which are free or low cost, puts a daily 5-minute mediation at your fingertips, making it easier than ever.
  • Exercise smarter, not harder. While getting enough exercise is critical to both physical and mental health, this can be a real struggle for folks with challenging pain problems. In many cases, trying the typical gym exercises will only flare-up the pain even more, making the whole subject of exercise even more frustrating for patients. This is where looking outside the box can pay off by exploring other movement strategies, some of which, like tai chi and yoga, can even be done in a chair. When trying a new activity, go slow and gentle, and consider breaking it up into smaller sessions during the day instead of doing it all at once. Adding good music and making it social can boost the fun value of whatever you are doing.
  • Start event planning. Commit to doing at least one joyful activity each month. Spend some time planning to do something that is special and has meaning for you, and then book it on your calendar. It can be as simple as going to the movies or taking a walk in the park. The anticipation of having something fun coming your way can boost optimism, improve mood, and lower stress.
  • Take it outside. Make a habit of going outdoors and getting some fresh air in the middle of the day on a regular basis, even if it is for just a few minutes. Midday sunlight increases vitamin D levels, helps set our biological clocks, and can improve mood.

No matter what new, exciting, or different therapies or strategies that you explore this year, try not to fret about any hiccups or missteps that you encounter along the way. Appreciate each moment of the process as meaningful in some way. And if you can get through the first few months, there is a better chance that the new resolution will become a lasting habit.

Article Provided By: WebMD

Carolina Pain Scrambler Logo, Chronic Pain, Greenville, SC
If you would like to discuss what Carolina Pain Scrambler do to help relieve your chronic pain symptoms or receive more information on our treatment
process, please do not hesitate to call us at 864-520-5011 or you can email us at info@carolinapainscrambler.com
Pain Therapy, Pain Relief, Nerve Pain Treatment, Nerve Pain Therapy, South Carolina

Can Your Gut Health Impact Your Pain?

Gut Health & Pain

You may have noticed that at any given moment your pain levels can fluctuate based on many different variables, including the weather, how much sleep you got the night before, and whether or not you are having a stressful day. But you may not have given much thought to the role that bacteria might be playing in how you feel. You have hundreds of different types of bacteria living inside the gut that make up what is referred to as the microbiome, and like a fingerprint, each person’s microbiome is a bit unique but swayed by factors like diet, the environment, and lifestyle habits. Research has shown that the composition of the gut bacteria in healthy people often differs from those with certain diseases, including obesity, heart disease, inflammatory bowel disease, diabetes, autoimmune disorders, and even depression.As we start to learn more about how our microbiome affects our overall health, we are also starting to see evidence that it can also play a role in how much we hurt. Consider a recent study published by researchers from the University of Rochester that looked at the effects of the microbiome on joint pain and swelling in mice. In comparing the gut bacteria of mice that had been plumped up on an unhealthy diet with mice kept on a healthy diet, they found that the obese mice’s gut bacteria was not only different than that of their slimmer counterparts, it also included inflammation-causing strains. These gut changes coincided with signs of inflammation throughout their bodies, including their joints. The researchers also found that when both sets of mice experienced cartilage damage to their knees, the obese mice with the inflammation-causing gut bacteria experienced a rapid deterioration of their joints compared to the other mice.In a short amount of time, these unfortunate mice developed advanced osteoarthritis of their knees. When the researchers treated the obese mice with a prebiotic (a food source for growing healthy bacteria in the gut), they were able to prevent the inflammation and arthritic deterioration in their knee joints, without changing their body composition.
This is very interesting research, but despite this and other evidence suggesting that the microbiome can directly impact the amount of inflammation, arthritis, and ultimately the amount of pain that we experience, it is still unclear how to take advantage of this information to treat pain in our everyday lives. Unfortunately, in humans we have not found that simply adding a prebiotic to our diet will make all of the pain and swelling magically disappear. There may be a number of reasons for that, including the wide variation in microbiomes from person to person, and the unique environments that we each live in. But, just because we don’t know exactly which foods might help improve gut health doesn’t mean we can’t give it try. I’ve personally made it a point to increase my intake of both prebiotics and probiotics (live, beneficial bacteria). Prebiotics can be found in fiber-rich fruits and vegetables, and you can get probiotics in foods like yogurt, kefir, kombucha, kimchi, and sauerkraut, or via supplements. As always, make sure to talk to your doctor before making any big changes or starting a supplement.
Article Provided By: WebMD

Carolina Pain Scrambler Logo, Chronic Pain, Greenville, SC
If you would like to discuss what Carolina Pain Scrambler do to help relieve your chronic pain symptoms or receive more information on our treatment
process, please do not hesitate to call us at 864-520-5011 or you can email us at info@carolinapainscrambler.com
Nerve Pain Therapy, Peripheral, Carpal Tunnel, Pain Center, Pain Relief

Let People In With Chronic Pain

How to Let People In When You Have Chronic Pain

When someone is in pain, their whole family is impacted.

I was reminded of this truth recently as visitors approached my booth at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. I was struck by how many people were stopping by my booth on behalf of somebody in their lives who was having a difficult time with chronic pain. The most memorable was when a brother and sister, probably about 5 and 6 years old, dragged their mom over to talk to me about their grandfather, who was struggling with neck pain. At their young age, they shared powerful insights about their grandfather’s condition, not to mention a strong sense of wanting to help.

Though you might feel isolated in the midst of a pain experience, those around you are likely deeply impacted by what you are going through – and there’s a good chance that they really want to be with you in this experience. They may just not know how to get in.

Here are a few ways you can share your pain experience with people who care about you:

  • Education: The better others understand your health challenges, the more helpful they can be. I recommend you share some of the books or articles that you have found helpful, and consider inviting them to join you at some of your doctor visits or physical therapy sessions.
  • Recreation: To build better bonds, try to have some fun together. If there are activities, sports, or hobbies that you no longer do, now is the time to find new pursuits that you can share with others. Whether it is going on walks together or hosting a movie night, plan activities that are joyful for everyone. Try to use this as an opportunity for growth.
  • Communication: It is easy to feel closed-off from others and to not want to engage when you don’t feel well, but it’s important to make an effort to create dialogue between you and your family. If you feel a strong instinct toward isolation, you may need to create a deliberate plan to combat it – consider scheduling a specific time to chat. Of course, it’s reasonable to spend some of the time talking about your own challenges, but to truly connect with others, you’ll want to talk about things going on with other members of your circle as well.
  • Expression: Nonverbal communication plays an important role in how we connect with others, especially when we are in pain. Facial expressions and grimacing can say a lot without uttering a word, and how we say things, or the tone that we use, also influences how others receive our message. I am not recommending that you try to hide how you feel or present yourself in a way that is false, but it might be worth taking stock of your nonverbal communication patterns to see if any subtle changes might make it clearer to the people around you that you are open to  connecting with them. Eye contact can boost connectivity during a conversation, and a smile can go a long way to letting someone know how much you appreciate them.

Hopefully, adding a few of these strategies can help open the door to connection, and possibly even strengthen your relationships.

Article Provided By: WebMD

Carolina Pain Scrambler Logo, Chronic Pain, Greenville, SC
If you would like to discuss what Carolina Pain Scrambler do to help relieve your chronic pain symptoms or receive more information on our treatment
process, please do not hesitate to call us at 864-520-5011 or you can email us at info@carolinapainscrambler.com
Chronic Pain, Neuropathy Treatment, Pain Relief, Pain Therapy, Pheripheral Neuropathy

When It Hurts to Be Touched

Our sense of touch is a fundamental part of the human experience. Being touched by others a powerful tool of communication, whether it is through a handshake, a hug, or a pat on the back, and it can also boost a sense of general well-being.Unfortunately, living with chronic pain can interfere with your ability to touch, feel, hold, or be held by others. One of the most challenging examples of this occurs when we develop extreme sensitivities to touch from things that aren’t usually painful. The medical term for this is allodynia, and it means that something is painful from a non-painful stimulus. Imagine lightly brushing the back of your hand with a cotton ball. That should not hurt in the least, but now suppose doing so is all of a sudden associated with the feeling of intense pain in the hand.This type of extreme sensitivity to touch can have a dramatic effect on a person’s life. They may completely avoid using an affected body part, like a hand in our example, or they may avoid even leaving the house out of fear that being around others may risk contact with the sensitive body part.One of the most common types of pain that can lead to something like allodynia is nerve pain, also known as neuropathic pain. One nerve pain syndrome, in particular, that is often associated with cantankerous forms of allodynia is complex regional pain syndrome, or CRPS. CRPS can be a debilitating pain problem that usually involves an extremity, like an arm or leg, after some type of tissue injury has taken place.Allodynia can be associated with other types of chronic pain problems, as well, including fibromyalgia, migraine headaches, TMJ, painful surgical scars, and skin damage from ultraviolet radiation. In fact, migraine sufferers have been reported to have pain with hair combing, shaving, and putting in contact lenses.Researchers believe that allodynia is a result of the amplification of pain signals going on in the brain – a problem called “central sensitization” – though it is still unclear what causes it.

Fortunately, allodynia can be successfully treated under the right circumstances, so it is important to find health care providers who understand this problem and can help. Desensitization techniques are one way of reducing the hypersensitivity of the skin or tissues, and you can even learn how to do some of this at home on your own. For example, placing a sensitive hand or foot into a bowl of uncooked rice or lentils is one tool we use with some of our patients. Other topical treatments include things like contrast baths, paraffin wax, and clay. Because desensitization can be a painful process to start, it helps to have as much support and guidance from your treatment team as you can get.So, if you are struggling with hypersensitivities and it is interfering with your quality of life, ask your health care team for help.
Article Provided By: WebMD
Carolina Pain Scrambler Logo, Chronic Pain, Greenville, SC
If you would like to discuss what Carolina Pain Scrambler do to help relieve your chronic pain symptoms or receive more information on our treatment
process, please do not hesitate to call us at 864-520-5011 or you can email us at info@carolinapainscrambler.com
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