Tag: chronic pain

Anxiety: An Unexpected Driver of Self Destruction

The inevitable suffering of human life takes on a vastly different meaning in a culture that values pleasure and convenience above all else. In some spiritual traditions, the suffering of life is a necessary prerequisite for spiritual elevation; in others, our suffering is necessary to repay our past sins or karma. When the suffering of…


Pain Killers Causing More Pain?

Your 12-year-old daughter says her stomach hurts. Your 50-something spouse complains of a headache. Then there’s your own joint pain: the dull ache just below your elbow, perhaps from spending too much time typing on a computer keyboard, and your sore hips from the slow jogging you’ve been doing to keep in shape. “Pain is…


Can Your Diet Ease Chronic Pain?

The idiom, “you are what you eat,” is well accepted when it comes to increasing or decreasing your risk for heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, obesity, and some types of cancer. But it may come as a surprise that research increasingly suggests that what you put on your plate can either increase or decrease pain…


Psychological Interventions + Physical Therapy Ease Chronic Low Back Pain

For people with chronic, nonspecific low back pain, psychological interventions are most effective when delivered in conjunction with physical therapy care (mainly structured exercise), according to a review published online March 30 in The BMJ. Emma Kwan-Yee Ho, from University of Sydney, and colleagues conducted a systematic literature review to identify randomized controlled trials comparing psychological…


Why Chronic Pain Is Almost Always Misdiagnosed

We usually think of it as a bad thing, but pain helps keep us from harm. In fact, without pain, our lives would be cut short. In the book “Pain: The Gift that Nobody Wants,” authors Philip Yancey and Dr. Paul Brand write about a congenital disease that causes people to be born unable to…


Arthritis – How to Relieve the Pain and Heal Naturally

Arthritis is painful inflammation of one or more joints in the body. There are more than 100 types of arthritis, though the best-known types are osteoarthritis (which breaks down cartilage), rheumatoid arthritis (which is an autoimmune disorder affecting the lining of the joints), and gout (caused by deposits of urate crystals in the joints). Any…


Managing Chronic Pain in Adults: The Latest Evidence on Psychological Therapies

Many people with chronic pain (or persistent pain, a term some prefer) feel misunderstood and offended when their GP or pain specialist suggest that they need ‘psychological treatment’: “The pain is real, it’s not in my head”. But psychological methods of treating chronic pain or, rather, treating the problems associated with chronic pain have been used for…


New Study Suggests You Can Unlearn Chronic Back Pain

Chronic back pain affects millions of Americans. Most, however, can’t identify the source of that pain. Neither can X-rays, tests, or other tools that doctors use to diagnose such problems. And perhaps unsurprisingly, most treatments don’t work. About 85 percent of people who report chronic back pain don’t have a test result to highlight a…