If you have pain and are hurting, you are not alone: The American Academy of Pain Management estimates that over 50 million Americans suffer from chronic pain caused by disease, disorder or accident. The most common pain complaints include arthritis, lower back pain, bone/joint pain, muscle pain, fibromyalgia, and of course headaches.
In a study called Pain in America, a surprising 60 percent of the respondents said that pain is something you have to live with. And 28 percent felt that there was no solution for their pain. Well you do not have to live with pain there are plenty of solutions to our plight.
“Listen to pain,” advises Scott M. Fishman, M.D., chief of the division of pain management at University of California, Davis. “If we cover up pain all the time, we may miss an important signal.”New techniques of pain management offer relief for a wide variety of complaints, and you and your doctor should pursue a pain solution aggressively.
But much of the time, daily aches and pains can be eased without running to the doctor for ongoing supervised intervention. Your pain woes may be caused by a lack of activity, by sports-related exercise, by a poor setup at your desk or workplace, by stress and tension, by the wrong shoes. If you remove just one of these little insults, you have a good chance of pain relief.
For most pain discomforts, we reach for NSAIDS—nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. They are very effective, but “when people take ibuprofen, aspirin, ketoprofen or naproxen sodium, they figure since those drugs are OTC, they must be safe. As a result, they overdo them or don’t pay attention to interactions with other medications,” says Joseph Markenson, M.D., professor at Weill Medical College in New York City. “While the benefits of these drugs are enormous and real, so too are the risks of gastrointestinal upset and bleeding.”
“With any OTC (over the counter) pain reliever, start low and go slow”, says Dr. Fishman. He also suggests, “Don’t use aspirin as your first choice for pain relief. It is short-acting as far as pain goes, but long-acting in its impact on platelets and blood coagulation, but has a greater risk of causing ulcers than ibuprofen, for example.”
When it comes to decisions about pain relief, says Dr. Fishman, you have to think about what makes sense for you and weigh individual risks and benefits: Is the pain affecting your quality of life? Do you need a pain reliever to keep going every day? Can you get rid of your headache some other way? Proceed cautiously. And REMEMBER, don’t ignore pain, and don’t kill the messenger in your brain. Make a smart choice and listen; it’s trying to tell you something.
Click here:
Pain Relief Information, and Products for pain treatment.
Ray Attebery is the Managing Director for Daily Health Updates, a breaking health news national service for TV and Radio broadcast stations in the United States and also the President for The Centre for Pain Relief in New York City.