How To Parent A Child With Chronic Pain

July 7, 2020 / Thomas Cohn, MD

As a parent, you want to shield your child from pain, which is why watching them deal with a chronic health condition can be so difficult to stomach. You want to remove their pain and the burden it is placing on them, and there are some steps you can take to help increase your likelihood of successfully treating their condition. Below, we share some tips for parents who want to help their child overcome a chronic pain condition.

Parenting A Child In Chronic Pain

There is no perfect playbook for parenting a child with a chronic pain condition, but there are some ways to help improve your child’s odds of overcoming their condition or helping reduce their symptoms. Those steps include:

Professional Help – Finding a professional who is willing to work hard to uncover the true source of pain is a must for any parent of a child with a chronic pain condition. If the doctor is treating the symptoms or the wrong underlying issue, your child will not find relief. Find a doctor who is invested in your child’s health. It may take a few visits to different clinics (or just one call to Dr. Cohn’s office), but don’t stop until you find someone who is willing to go the extra mile for you and your child.

Focus On The Positives – It can be easier for both parent and child to focus their attention on the negatives of a health condition. They may dwell on the fact that pain forced them to miss school, or that playing sports is too uncomfortable. Instead of focusing on what pain may be taking away from you, try to focus on the positives as it pertains to treatment. Focus on all the things you’ll be able to do again if you work hard to get control over your condition. Think about what they have to gain from treatments like physical therapy or exercise, and really try to motivate your child to follow through on their daily treatment regimen.

Give Them Independence – A chronic pain condition can rob a person of some of their independence, and this can be especially hard for kids and teens who are growing into their own person. We know that you want to help them when things get tough, but it’s imperative that you let them do things on their own, even if it’s harder for them. They’ll be better off trying and failing and learning to succeed on their own than having you do things for them because of their pain condition. Obviously there are times when assistance is needed, but you’ll both be better off if you keep their independence in mind.

Not Just A Physical Problem – Whether you’re young or old, you need to realize that a chronic pain condition may be causing physical symptoms, but it’s not just a physical issue. A chronic pain condition can have serious implications for your mental health, and these issues can be amplified in young and impressionable minds. Don’t be afraid to talk to your doctor about mental health resources or if talking to a therapist could be beneficial. Make sure you monitor your child’s mental health just as much as you monitor their physical health.

Listen – Finally, make sure that you do just as much listening as you do talking when it comes to helping your child with their pain condition. Sometimes all they need is a person to vent to, or maybe they want to open about about what’s bothering them. Instead of trying to jump in and provide solutions, just listen. You’ll be amazed at how helpful you can be when you don’t say anything.

For more tips, or for help with your child’s chronic pain condition, reach out to Dr. Cohn’s office today.

Five Daily Ways You Can Prevent And Treat Arthritis

June 4, 2020 / Thomas Cohn, MD

Arthritis is one of if most common health conditions that affects individuals over the age of 50. In fact, roughly 1 in 4 Americans over the age of 54 have been diagnosed with arthritis, so odds are you know someone in your life who is battling the condition.

The tricky part about arthritis is that there’s not a lot that can be done to turn back the clock on your joints once the problem has developed. We can help reduce symptoms and make daily life more bearable, but given that it is a degenerative condition, it’s difficult to restore your joints to a younger, healthier version of itself. Instead, we always preach that prevention is preferred to treatment. Below, we take a closer look at five things you should strive to do each day to help ward off arthritis in your knees, hips, shoulders and wrists.

Daily Arthritis Prevention Activities

Here’s a look at five things you can do each day to reduce your risk of arthritis.

1. Exercise – Exercise may seem like it’s hard on your joints, but regular, moderate-intensity exercise is one of the best things you can do to keep your joints healthy. Exercise helps to prevent joint stiffness and muscle atrophy that can contribute to joint dysfunction. Protect your joints by working to strengthen them through daily exercise.

2. Weight Management – Exercise can also help you keep this factor in mind. Weight management is key for preventing arthritis. If you’re carrying extra weight, your joints are going to be the ones feeling this stress. Losing just a few pounds can take a lot of stress off your joints. Considering that we take roughly 8,000-10,000 steps a day on average, that’s a lot of stress on your knees that can be avoided if you just strive to maintain a healthy weight.

3. Eat Healthy – Now, every meal doesn’t need to be perfect, but if you can have more bad days than good when it comes to your diet, you’ll be putting yourself in a good position to stave off arthritis. A poor diet can lead to excess weight, which as we talked about above will challenge your joints. It can also contribute to joint inflammation, making certain movements painful and contributing to a reduced likelihood to exercise and strengthen your joints.

4. Prevent Joint Injuries – Not all acute injuries are preventable, but you can reduce your risk of an injury by taking time to stretch before activity and avoiding overstressing joints with too much activity in too short a time period. Know your limits when it comes to certain physical activities. Overexerting yourself can put excess stress on your joints, which can lead them to break down and become arthritic.

5. Avoid Smoking – Finally, ditch the tobacco products if you want to get serious about reducing your arthritis risk. Studies show that smoking increases your risk of rheumatoid arthritis, among other health issues. Give up smoking or stay away from the habit if you want to reduce your arthritis risk.

And if you believe you’re in the beginning stages of arthritis, talk to a pain specialist like Dr. Cohn. Early intervention can prevent symptoms from getting worse, so reach out to his clinic today for more information.

What Weather Makes Chronic Pain Worse?

May 20, 2020 / Thomas Cohn, MD

The weather can affect your mood, but can it also affect how pain is expressed and felt in your body? According to new research out of the United Kingdom, certain whether patterns may make your chronic pain condition worse. Below, we take a closer look at what the study uncovered, and we explain why certain weather patterns may lead to a chronic pain flareup.

Chronic Pain and The Weather

To better understand how weather systems affected individuals with pain, researchers from the University of Manchester conducted a 15-month study involving more than 13,000 people living with chronic pain. Patients were asked to record their pain intensity each day with the help of a smartphone app. GPS location data was also used to record the weather data for the individual’s location. Researchers ranked all tracked days, and the most painful days saw 23 percent of participants report an increase in pain, whereas only 10 percent said the same on the days ranked as the least painful days.

Researchers took the 45 highest ranking days for pain and averaged the weather conditions to determine the weather patterns that were present on the days when the most amount of people were in pain. The same was done for the 45 lowest ranking days. Here’s what they found:

On the most painful days, the jet stream was aimed right at the UK, with below-normal pressure over the UK.
On the most painful days, the humidity and precipitation rate were both above-normal.
On the least painful days, there was above-normal pressure over the UK.
On the least painful days, the humidity and precipitation rate were both below-normal, and winds were weaker.

Co-lead researchers Professor David Schultz, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Manchester, and Professor Will Dixon, had this to say about the study:

“Over 2400 years ago, Hippocrates wrote that different wind directions could bring better or worse health to individuals,” said Professor Dixon. “The belief by people living with long-term pain conditions, such as arthritis, that their pain is affected by the weather remains prevalent today, with about 75% of people with chronic pain believing this to be true. Yet, there is disagreement over what weather condition makes their pain worse.”

“Part of the reason for this lack of consensus is that previous researchers have treated the different measures of the weather such as pressure, temperature, humidity separately, which assumes that one could vary the temperature while holding all of the other weather measures fixed,” said Professor Schultz. “Of course, the real atmosphere does not behave like this, as all the variables are changing simultaneously. A simple analysis clearly won’t do to get at understanding how weather affects pain.”

The leading theory is that when low pressure systems arrives, the pressure against your joints drops as well, which can make swelling and inflammation worse. Our bodies then react to this inflammation, which can lead to an increase in pain sensations. It’s far from a concrete science, but this study seems to provide more proof that there is at least a correlation between certain weather conditions and an increase or decrease in chronic pain.

3 Things You Should Do Every Day If You Have Chronic Pain

May 14, 2020 / Thomas Cohn, MD

Navigating your daily life can be difficult if you’re stuck dealing with a chronic pain condition. Between the good days and the rough days, it’s hard to know what each morning is going to bring. However, no matter how hard each day is, it’s imperative that you do a couple of things each day to keep your body and mind moving in the right direction. In today’s blog, we share three things you should do every day if you’re stuck in a constant battle with chronic pain.

Do These Three Things Each Day If You Have Chronic Pain

Now, there’s no perfect recipe for treating chronic pain because it is so unique to the individual, but we’ve found that patients who strive to do these three things every day tend to have more good days than bad when it comes to managing their chronic pain condition.

Each day you should so something for your:

Body – In order to help get your pain under control, you need to take care of your body. Every day you should strive to do something that helps your physical health. Go for a run, or if that’s too difficult, go for a walk around the block. Try to get your blood pumping and strengthen some key muscle groups. A lot of chronic pain conditions respond well to weight loss and stress reduction from muscle improvement, both of which can occur by challenging your body on a physical basis. Make it a point to do something physical outside of your normal daily routine each and every day.

Mind – Chronic pain conditions are not just a physical manifestation. Many pain conditions also have psychological effects as well, and failing to care for your mind can inhibit you ability to achieve physical health improvement. Every day you should do something that challenges your mind and boosts your mental health. Do a crossword puzzle, relax with some meditation or just dive into a book. These activities will take your mind off your physical pain, but it can also help treat physical conditions because of how intertwined your mental and physical health can be. Do something recreational that truly engages your mind each day.

Soul – Finally, do something each day that is unequivocally, 100 percent and totally for you. Do an activity that you are passionate about each day. Take up a woodworking project, play hide and seek with your kids or just do something that makes you happy to be alive. Find what drives you and engage in your passions, and you’ll be amazed what this can do for decreasing and managing your chronic pain condition.

If you do these three things each day while also following your doctor’s recommendations, we’re confident you’ll find yourself in more control of your chronic pain condition. And if you have questions or want help with your personal pain problem, please reach out to Dr. Cohn and his experienced medical staff today.

The Differences In Treating Acute Vs. Chronic Pain

April 28, 2020 / Thomas Cohn, MD

Everyone experiences pain differently, and depending on the type of pain you’re suffering from, it will generally be categorized into one of two groups – acute pain and chronic pain. Acute pain is the most common type of pain, and it is typically the result of trauma. For example, if you stub your toe on the kitchen table, you’ll be feeling acute pain in your toe. Conversely, chronic pain is a type of pain that is persistent or that lasts for longer than three months. Chronic pain can develop out of acute pain, or it can develop for another reason. For example, if that same stubbed toe led to nerve damage that never healed properly, you may suffer from chronic toe pain.

Although these two types of pain are often intertwined and related, they typically need to be treated in slightly different manners. Below, we take a closer look at some of the different ways acute and chronic pain are managed.

Treating Acute Pain

We treat both types of pain at our clinic, but acute pain tends to be treated more commonly in hospitals and emergency departments. Fractures, sprains, bruises and cuts are all common forms of acute pain that result from trauma or physical injury. Although treatment should be individualized to the patient, minor to mild acute pain is often treated with conservative options like:

Rest
Anti-inflammatory medications
Pain-relieving medications
Elevation
Compression
Hot or cold therapy
Casting

For more severe forms of acute pain, options like manual therapy, physical therapy or surgery may be recommended. Most providers will recommend that you try six weeks of conservative therapy before you pursue surgery, although certain acute injuries may require more immediate surgical intervention.

Treating Chronic Pain

Treating chronic pain is a little more difficult than acute pain, because it’s not always obvious what’s causing the pain. When you stub your toe, it’s easy to hone in on suspected problems. However, if you’ve been feeling mild discomfort in your spine for the last few months and it’s progressively gotten worse, there are a number of different issues that could be contributing to your pain. Because of this, the most important aspect to developing a successful chronic pain treatment plan is to determine the underlying cause of pain.

With the help of a physical exam, movement screens and imaging tests, a chronic pain specialist can help pinpoint exactly what’s going on in your body. From there, a treatment course is charted.

Many of the same treatment options for acute pain can be applied to chronic pain, but treatment tends to focus on more of the active treatments instead of passive options like rest and medications. While those aspects can play a key role in your recovery, chronic pain oftentimes responds better to treatments like:

Physical Therapy
Exercise
Stretching Techniques
Posture Awareness and Education
Weight Loss and Improve Diet

You’re also more likely to need to adjust your treatment strategy when trying to rid yourself of chronic pain, so take note of what’s working and what’s not working and discuss these options with your doctor. Don’t just keep trying certain treatments if they aren’t producing results, because odds are a few simple adjustments can greatly reduce your pain.

For more information about either type of pain, or for help with your pain, reach out to Dr. Cohn’s office today.