ORLANDO, Fla. (Ivanhoe Newswire) — Can writing be an alternative to surgery when treating chronic pain? One orthopedic spine surgeon believes it can be. Ivanhoe has details on his findings and some other natural ways to relieve chronic pain.
One in five adults in the US suffers with chronic pain. Medications, medical devices, and surgery have been used by doctors to treat chronic pain, but at least one doctor thinks there is a better way.
David Hanscom, MD, Orthopedic Spine Surgeon says, “So, the misnomer is that there’s always something structural wrong. And the real answer is there’s rarely something structural wrong.”
Doctor Hanscom is an Orthopedic Spine Surgeon and believes that doctors should treat chronic pain by treating the root cause like lack of sleep.
“Forty percent of Americans don’t sleep. We know that actual lack of sleep actually causes chronic back pain, causes it. It’s not the result of chronic pain. It causes chronic pain.” Explains Doctor Hanscom.
He also believes in a technique called Expressive Writing, where you write down your thoughts and then tear them up. This method is a form of meditation in that it helps people separate from their negative thoughts, which add stress to the body causing pain.
Doctor Hanscom says, “I would say within four to six weeks after people started express writing, started getting better sleep, symptoms would drop down dramatically.”
And some experts say what you eat also helps. Studies revealed turmeric, cloves, capsaicin, ginger, and fish oil can all improve chronic pain. In fact, one study from University of Pittsburgh Medical Center found more than half the patients with neck or back pain who participated were able to stop taking prescription painkillers after being on fish oil supplements for 75 days. Hoping you can live pain-free naturally.
Essential oils could also help with chronic pain. A study from South Korea found eucalyptus oil reduced pain, swelling, and inflammation for patients after knee replacement surgery.
Contributors to this news report include: Milvionne Chery, Producer; Bob Walko, Editor.
Sources:
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/324572,
https://www.everydayhealth.com/news/cheap-natural-quick-chronic-pain-remedies/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16531187/
https://www.hindawi.com/journals/ecam/2013/502727/
TREATING CHRONIC PAIN NATURALLY
REPORT #3035
BACKGROUND: Chronic or persistent pain is pain that carries on for longer than 12 weeks despite medication or treatment. Most people get back to normal after pain following an injury or operation. But sometimes, the pain carries on for longer or comes without any history of an injury or operation. Chronic pain is the number one cause of disability and disease burden globally. More than one in five adults in the United States experience chronic pain. Approximately eight percent of adults have high-impact chronic pain. Eighty-four percent of high-impact chronic pain patients are unable to work outside of their home. Chronic pain is significantly more prevalent in women than in men. Also, adults with less than a high school education make up 24 to 28 percent of all chronic pain patients.
https://www.asbestos.com/cancer/chronic-pain-statistics/)
DIAGNOSIS: Sometimes chronic pain has an obvious cause, like long-lasting illnesses such as arthritis or cancer. Injuries can also cause chronic pain. Some people have chronic pain that isn’t tied to an injury or physical illness, so it’s best to have your doctor check you out. People with chronic pain describe their pain in many different ways, such as aching, burning, shooting, squeezing, stiffness, stinging, or throbbing. Chronic pain often leads to other symptoms and conditions like axiety, depression, fatigue, insomnia, or mood swings. Pain is subjective – only the person experiencing it can identify and describe it – so it could be difficult for health care providers to determine the cause. Some things that your provider may want to know when you’re being examined are: where the pain is, how bad the pain is, how often is occurs, and how it affects your lifestyle.
(Source: https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/4798-chronic-pain)
NEW REGULATIONS: Pain is the main reason people go to a doctor, but many don’t find adequate relief because only a handful of pain treatments are available. Although opioids are effective for acute pain, they don’t work for many pain conditions and carry significant risks for addiction. The Helping to End Addiction Long-term InitiativeSM, or NIH HEAL InitiativeSM, hopes to untangle these mysteries as part of its new clinical research programs to find new effective and non-addictive pain treatments. The NIH-funded Early Phase Pain Investigation Clinical Network (EPPIC-Net) is a $50 million nationwide web of 12 pain research programs (like Wallace’s) to quickly and efficiently conduct simultaneous multisite research studies to evaluate a variety of pain treatments. It will test not only medications, but also surgical interventions, devices, and even totally new approaches like cell-based therapies. Some may even be repurposed drugs tested before for other conditions. Aside from new and different drugs to treat chronic pain, there are also natural and holistic ways that people are trying. Exercise, fish oil, tumeric, and heat therapy are just a few natural ways to treat chronic pain.
(Sources: https://heal.nih.gov/news/stories/eppic-net-effective-pain-treatments
https://www.everydayhealth.com/news/cheap-natural-quick-chronic-pain-remedies/)
* For More Information, Contact:
Beth Grossman
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