Pain Management: Common Pain Syndromes

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Good Morning!

 

Pain Management: Common Pain Syndromes

 

Acute and chronic pain effects over 100 million people in the United

States each year. While pain is best known and characterized as

subjective, meaning only the person who is experiencing it can

explain what it feels like, pain is often called the Universal

equalizer. Pain affects people differently. What may be perceived as

only a minor nuisance to one person, may be completely debilitating

to someone else. Pain is a warning that something isn't quite right.

Pain is not a disease in itself but the result of an underlying

condition or due to injury. Pain is not just a physical sensation or

psychological event, but a combination of these and other components.

 

Pain can be caused by a variety of situations such as accidents,

musculoskeletal disorders, improper lifting, bending, sports

activities, misalignment of the vertebrae of the spine and disease.

It can also appear out of nowhere with no obvious cause. A viral

illness may possibly be a cause, or emotional trauma, such as fear or

resentment. n the vast majority of cases, pain is caused by stasis of

blood and or our body's energy resulting in muscle spasm, trauma and

immobility.

 

Pain is a vicious cycle: spasm and inflammation lead to more spasm

and inflammation. Although the cycle can develop due to injury, the

ultimate cause is often in the brain, which can interfere with muscle

physiology through the spinal cord. Chronic (long term) and acute

back (and neck) pain are common expressions of stress and emotional

stress. This demonstrates the true complexity of the mind/body

interaction. Many times it is the brain's distortion of muscle

function that sets us up for pain by preventing muscles from

responding freely to physical stresses.

 

Acute pain can result from disease, inflammation, or injury to

tissues. This type of pain generally comes on suddenly, for example,

after trauma or surgery, and may be accompanied by anxiety or

emotional distress. The cause of acute pain can usually be diagnosed

and treated, and the pain is self-limiting, that is, it is confined

to a given period of time and severity. In some rare instances, it

can become chronic.

 

Chronic pain is widely believed to represent disease itself. It can

be made much worse by environmental and psychological factors.

Chronic pain persists over a longer period of time than acute pain

and is resistant to most medical treatments. It can often cause

severe problems for patients.

 

In assessing pain, a useful approach is to assess pain intensity

(sensory), pain relief (cognitive), pain location, pain distress

(affective), behavioral patterns or other similar sensory aspects of

pain.

 

Without a doubt, added stress and strains can take its toll on your

spinal and nervous system. Maintaining a physically fit body,

awareness of body positions, a clean and detoxified internal system,

keeping fears, stress and insecurities in check and careful execution

physically, through each day are all great ways to avoid daily aches

and pains.

 

 

Common Pain Syndromes

 

1. Inflammation can be caused by injury, joint diseases, tumors,

infection, abscesses, misalignment. The cause is usually clearly

defined and is medically classified as Calor, dolor, rubor, and

tumor: Heat, pain, redness, and swelling. The four classical signs of

inflammation.

 

2. Physical Injury are defined as cuts, broken bones, sprains and

strains and can manifest as intense burning pain or deep aching pain.

 

3. Widened Inflamed Blood Vessels considered migraines, headaches or

temporal arteritis. This is defined as pulsing, throbbing intense

pain and localized to the area of inflamed blood vessels.

 

4. Insufficient Blood Flow considered angina, leg pain, pain from

exercise or in some cultures the definition of pain itself; blood

stagnation.

 

5. Nerve Pain expressed as shingles, diabetic neuropathy and

sciatica. This sensation is that of tingling or burning pain and may

radiate along nerve pathways.

 

6. Toxemia, which is caused by the ingestion and accumulation of

substances which are foreign to the body and toxic in nature, such as

chemicals, drugs, etc. These produce irritation, inflammation and

pathology in bodily organs and systems. Toxemia, which is also due to

the accumulation of toxic wastes resulting from the food and

beverages we eat and drink; unnatural food or natural food in excess

beyond what the body can use at the moment.

 

7. Deficiencies: The insufficiency of necessary food substances, such

as carbohydrates, proteins, fats, minerals, vitamins, enzymes etc.,

lead to breakdown of cells, tissues and organs which is given names

of diseases, according to its location.

 

8. Enervation is the reduction or loss of energy due to the lack of

rest or sleep, or the excessive use of emotion, negative thoughts,

worry, stress, or the overdoing of physical actions, overeating etc.

Enervation leads to a reduction of the body's ability to digest,

absorb, assimilate and excrete body wastes - thus leading to a

retention of wastes in the cells and tissues and thereby causing

disease.

 

 

Andrew Pacholyk, MS, L.Ac.

Peacefulmind.com

Therapies for healing

mind, body, spirit