Everyday pain management ideas

Vitamin B12--also known as cyanocobalamin is an important nutritional element.  The human body uses this vitamin to make red blood cells, DNA, and other important products.   Cyanocobalamin is also necessary for integrity of the human nervous system.  In this regard, one of the symptoms of B12 deficiency is tingling or numbness in the hands and/or feet. Other signs of deficiency include anemia, problems with balance, inflammation of the tongue, jaundice, problems with thought processes, weakness and fatigue.  A deficiency of this vitamin can be caused to a number of different things.  Some of the more common reasons people are deficient include the following: Proton pump inhibitors--while wildly popular for their ability to quell heartburn and GERD and treat ulcers, chronic use of these medications interferes with the absorption of this crucial vitamin from the GI tract. Metformin, one of the most popular drugs used to treat type II diabetes...

For the 100 million plus Americans in chronic pain, there are sometimes more questions than answers. Many suffer day in, day out, with little to no hope for better solutions to their problems.  I would say to you all--there is hope out there...sometimes it takes time to figure out the best solution to one's problems, but there are many remediations already out there, and a lot of research into new and better solutions in the future. There is no "cookie cutter "solution to this problem; at best it is complex because pain is a unique experience to every individual. One of the newest things on the horizon is known as the " Stepped Care Model For Pain Management" (SCM-PM).  Recently published in the Journal of Pain Research , this approach to pain management has three levels: In the first step , a patient's pain concerns are identified by their clinician.  The patient and provider discuss the issue and focus on treatment based on self-management an...

You may be well aware that one of the complications of type II diabetes is neuropathy.  When caused by diabetes, the nerve damage is attributed to elevated blood glucose levels over extended periods of time.  But diabetes is NOT the only cause of neuropathy.  Some forms of neuropathy develop following illnesses, such as shingles, or physical damage to our bodies following injury, accident, or general wear and tear. The term polyneuropathy is used to describe multiple affected nerves as opposed to only one affected nerve (also known as mononeuropathy ). A new study of polyneuropathy from a team at the University of Michigan unveiled another way that this condition can develop.  According to study authors, pre-diabetes and obesity are also factors that contribute to development of this most uncomfortable condition. For those who are weight conscious, this is a winning situation. By being careful to maintain a healthy weight you are able to fend off pre-dia...

Whenever two football teams play a game, each of the teams has a strategy. The same goes for baseball teams, basketball teams, tennis players, those who play poker and other card games, chess, checkers, and so many other things. In medicine, a treatment algorithm helps guide practitioners in treating various medical conditions. The common denominator in all of the above is strategy. Football play strategy Image source: Wikimedia You can use this same kind of thinking to battle chronic pain issues.  That is why it's so important to have many different pain management tools available.  Every individual experiences pain differently--so knowing yourself and what to try first is a good place to start. The next step is to have a "plan B" so that you have a second treatment option on hand if your first option doesn't quite do the job.  From there you may want to add subsequent steps to your treatment plan. Multimodal pain management is highly recommended for peo...

There are many ways by which pain can be evaluated.  For instance, there are a couple of scales I discussed in an earlier post ( Some Thoughts On Quantifying Pain ). In this post I specifically discussed the 1-10 scale that is commonly used when people are able to verbally relate their pain to a caregiver or health care provider.  I also provided an example of the FACES scale, by which a nurse or other caregiver can assess pain by the expression on a person's face.  FLACC is the third example I shared in this post, which is primarily used when a patient is unresponsive but thought to be in pain. The above examples are all useful in assessing acute pain --following an injury, during an acute illness, surgery, etc.  But t hey do not really apply to chronic pain patients because chronic pain can come and go or feel better or worse on any given day.  For chronic pain it's more appropriate for a health care team to use their own questionnaire to assess the...

According to the Cleveland Clinic, seventy percent of migraine sufferers are women. About sixty to seventy percent of these women report a correlation between migraine attacks and the menstrual cycle.  Most commonly this is attributed to the fact that a woman's hormones levels fluctuate throughout their cycles. This change in hormone levels over time is said to be what precipitates migraines. Red Blood Cells A new study points to the idea that this is not the only mechanism by which a menstrual migraine can come about.  According to researchers at the Carolina Headache Institute, cyclic "end menstrual migraine" (EMM) can be the result of anemia. This anemia is the result of dropping ferritin levels due to blood loss of menstruation  The authors go on to say that more study is necessary to firm up this theory.  The good news is that the affected women in the Carolina study responded favourably to iron supplementation.   Here again, more study is ne...

It's not surprising to hear...or to be... someone who drinks, or drank as a minor. Those crazy teenage and college years are what memories are what made of, right?  In these early years of life we don't always take the time to think about the long term consequences of our choices; instead we focus on having a good time our friends and forgetting about our troubles for a while. It's really too bad that the human brain works this way.  A new study about long term consequences of alcohol consumption during the adolescent and early adult years gives us insight as to how alcohol abuse in the early years can contribute to health issues several decades later. The study was conducted by interviewing middle aged to older persons about their drinking habits during their earlier years and their current health status.  The main conclusion was that drinking heavily or excessively in the earlier years was strongly correlated with more health problems in the later years. The s...