Caring For Chronic Low Back Pain

June 3, 2022 / Thomas Cohn, MD

The following is a guest blog from Natalia Madden at The Healthy Place, a vitamin and supplement company that originated in Fitchburg, Wisconsin, and now has additional storefronts in the greater Madison area. The Healthy Place hopes to provide customers with the highest quality products and the education needed for customers to stride forward confidently on their journey to find wellness. You can learn more about them on their website, FindYourHealthyPlace.com

Your back is in pain and you feel at odds. Why? Well, this frustrating pain can leave us feeling helpless due to its central location, interfering with everything we try to do. Maybe your back hurts from bad posture or daily wear and tear, or you injured yourself exercising or doing yard work. Whatever is causing your low back pain, you want relief — and you want it fast.

Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to relieve lower back pain without the use of conventional pain medications. Check out the best low back pain relief methods below, where we mention everything from stretches and supplements to the best healthcare specialist you should seek for this pain.

How to Relieve Low Back Pain

Maintain good posture: This relaxes tension from your lower back that causes pain.
Stay active, even when your body wants otherwise: This prevents the weakening of back muscles and spinal support.
Stretch in the morning and throughout the day: Exercises like yoga and Pilates strengthen your core to keep back and hip muscles strong and supportive.
See a chiropractor or pain management specialist.
Supply your body with natural, relieving nutrients: Eat a nutritious diet and take dietary supplements to keep your nerves, muscles, and bones nourished for less pain and discomfort.

Low back pain is an unfortunately common health issue. In fact, it’s a leading cause of disability and over 25% of Americans struggle with it regularly. While pain relievers and other conventional methods are a normal go-to for low back pain, there are a variety of natural methods to relieve this uncomfortable and frustrating concern.

Stand tall, stay active, stretch regularly, and see a chiropractor or pain management specialist to maintain a pain-free back. And when the pain is in your way of daily life, nourish your body with a natural pain relief supplement. You can learn more about these options by talking to your pain management specialist or by connecting with a vitamin and supplement provider like Find Your Healthy Place!

Could The Arts Helps Drown Out Chronic Pain?

May 27, 2022 / Thomas Cohn, MD

Doctors and patients are always looking for new ways to take the sting out of a chronic pain condition, and while exercise and opioids are two of the most common treatments, other complimentary activities may also help a person drown out pain signals. According to new research, turning to the arts may help some people get a better handle over their chronic pain condition.

Art As Pain Treatment

There are a number of theories as to why turning to the creative arts may help someone manage their chronic pain condition, and the prevailing wisdom is that it helps to pull your attention away from your pain. Chronic pain can be an intrusive experience that seizes your attention and thoughts, but throwing yourself into a creative arts experience can help pull your thoughts away from your pain.

Others believe that art therapy can be helpful because it gives patients a sense of control. Chronic pain can be overwhelming and leave you feeling like you no longer have control over your physical health, but channeling your focus towards something that you create can help you regain a sense of control. If you learn that you can control some aspects of your life, your chronic pain condition doesn’t seem as unmanageable.

A number of studies have helped back up these theories, although they have only proved correlation, not causation. For example, we’ve seen how an art lesson can help cancer patients experience less pain, and how the creative arts like music, dance, even just looking at a painting can improve a person’s ability to cope with pain.

In fact, a 2020 report by the National Endowment for the Arts concluded that “arts-based interventions should be considered among potential complementary approaches for managing pain.”

So while Dr. Cohn and his team aren’t likely to prescribe some crayons and a coloring book at your next appointment, there does appear to be a clear connection between creative expression, art appreciation and the ability to better manage uncontrolled pain. Art therapy will not be able to replace your exercise program, but it can be a perfect compliment to your current treatment to help yield even better results.

Stick to your normal pain care routine, but this summer, consider creating something in a sketchbook once a week or visiting the local art fair once a month to gain a greater appreciation for the arts, and your pain condition may also become more manageable! For more information, or for more traditional treatments to help overcome a chronic pain condition, reach out to Dr. Cohn’s office today.

Five Additional Issues Caused By Unmanaged Chronic Pain

May 20, 2022 / Thomas Cohn, MD

Chronic pain isn’t an easy condition to control, and sometimes that can lead patients to become frusterated with how treatment is progressing. It can even lead them to give up on treating their condition entirely if they resolve to just grit their teeth and bear it during the bad days.

This isn’t ideal, because unaddressed chronic pain can cause a number of different issues for your health outside of pain. In today’s blog, we take a closer look at five additional health issues that can be caused by unmanaged chronic pain.

Health Issues Related To Chronic Pain

Here’s a look at a number of new health issues you may find yourself dealing with if you don’t work to actively manage your chronic pain condition.

1. High Blood Pressure – Unmanaged chronic pain places a heavy burden on your body, including your heart and your cardiovascular system. During a pain flare up, your body releases substances that increase your blood pressure and heart rate. Prolonged elevated blood pressure can put you at a higher risk for stroke or a heart attack.

2. Decreased Sleep Quality – Chronic pain can make it harder for a person to fall asleep and stay asleep, which can lead to shorter periods of extended restful sleep. This prolonged sleep is necessary for your whole body health, wheras poor sleep quality can leave your feeling tired and groggy throughout the day.

3. Depression and Anxiety – Chronic pain can also take a signfiicant toll on your mental health. Pain is a heavy burden to bear, and it can also affect the same pathways in the brain that regulate your mood. This can increase your risk of anxiety, depression, mood swings and similar mental health conditions.

4. Weight Gain – When you’re in pain, oftentimes all you want to do is curl up in bed and wait for the discomfort to dissapate. While that can be helpful once in a while, regularly avoiding activity and becoming more sedentary can lead to weight gain, which stresses other areas of the body like your joints. Not getting exercise because you’re in pain can lead you to become more inactive, leading to an increased risk of weight gain and making it harder for you to break out of the cycle you’re now caught in.

5. Decreased Quality of Life – While not exactly a health condition, untreated chronic pain can also negatively affect your total quality of life. You may find yourself shying away from activities you once loved or avoiding social situations out of fear of a flare up. That’s no way to go through life, but it’s a reality for many people who deal with pain on a daily basis.

Chronic pain is enough of a hassle without all the other issues that can develop as a result of untreated chronic pain, so it’s imperative that you really work to find a solution to your pain issue. That’s what Dr. Cohn and his team are here for. We won’t stop until we find a solution that works for you and has you back on the path to a fuller and more enjoyable life. For more information, or to take the first step in overcoming your pain condition, reach out to Dr. Cohn’s office today at (952) 738-4580.

New Research Dividing Physicians Over NSAIDs For Chronic Pain

May 13, 2022 / Thomas Cohn, MD

NSAIDs When you suffer an injury, it causes an inflammatory reaction inside the body, and if the problem isn’t treated correctly, this inflammation can linger. The prevailing understanding when it comes to chronic pain is that it is caused by chronic inflammation, which is why many specialists try to prevent the problem by working to control inflammation. Anti-inflammatory medication like Ibuprofen has been a common recommendation for decades as a way to effectively manage inflammation and work to reduce the risk of it becoming chronic.

However, new research seems to suggest that attempting to drown out this inflammation with anti-inflammatory medications before it gets out of control may not be providing the benefits we assume it does. In fact, they believe short-term use of these Non Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs) may actually increase your risk of chronic pain in the long term, and that claim is dividing the medical world.

Ibuprofen And Chronic Pain

The new research suggests that the initial inflammation that develops after an injury may be necessary for the body to make a full recovery. If this suggestion is true, it could shatter the decades-old standard of treating pain with aspirin, ibuprofen or IV steroids at the hospital. By drowning out this necessary initial inflammation, researchers suggest NSAIDs may actually be putting patients at a greater risk for developing chronic pain.

“For many decades it’s been standard medical practice to treat pain with anti-inflammatory drugs. But we found that this short-term fix could lead to longer-term problems,” says Jeffrey Mogil, a Professor in the Department of Psychology at McGill University and E. P. Taylor Chair in Pain Studies. “Neutrophils dominate the early stages of inflammation and set the stage for repair of tissue damage. Inflammation occurs for a reason, and it looks like it’s dangerous to interfere with it.”

Now, it’s worth noting that not everyone agrees with the research, at least not without additional evidence. The paper was rejected from the New England Journal of Medicine after one reviewer wrote that he would not “overturn decades of medical practice,” until additional convincing evidence was presented.

Even if the findings are true, as we’ve said countless times on our blog in the past, it may only hold true for a subset of patients because chronic pain is so unique to the individual, and what works for one patient may not work for others. For example, the shock and inflammatory response of an ankle sprain and a surgery vary greatly, and assuming this research applies unilaterally to both of these groups could lead people down the wrong treatment path.

So while the jury is still out on whether or not NSAIDs may be having some unintended consequences for our ability to help pain resolve, the good news is more research is being poured into how to best handle chronic pain, and that’s a great thing. The more we learn, the better we can help each patient.

If you need help with a chronic pain issue, reach out to Dr. Cohn’s office today at (952) 738-4580.

Why Does Acute Pain Become Chronic?

April 29, 2022 / Thomas Cohn, MD

Acute pain is oftentimes the result of direct trauma to an area, but in most cases the injury can eventually resolve with the help of active treatment. However, for a small percentage of people, their acute pain turns into a chronic condition, and this can make it much harder for pain to eventually subside. But why does acute pain turn into a chronic condition, and what can you do to prevent this from happening? We answer those questions and more in today’s blog.

Acute Pain Turns Chronic

If you’re not careful, an acute injury can turn into chronic pain. Here’s a look at some of the more common reasons why acute pain eventually becomes a chronic condition.

Left Untreated – The most common reason that an acute injury turns into chronic pain is because you don’t actively treat the underlying issue. A lot of people just try to grit their teeth and push through any discomfort caused by an acute injury, but that can lead to additional stress on an area and prolonged pain. For example, if you sprain your ankle, you’ll make the best recovery with a little bit of rest, physical therapy and a slow reintroduction to physical activities. If you try to keep playing sports or working manual labor on an injured ankles, those damaged ankle ligaments may never truly heal, leading to chronic instability or similar long-term issues. Don’t leave a problem, no matter how small, untreated.

Treating The Wrong Underlying Condition – An acute injury can also lead to a chronic condition if you end up treating the wrong underlying issue. If you think you’re dealing with one injury with a specific treatment regimen, but you are actually dealing with something else that is best treated by a different set of remedies, the underlying issue may never be corrected, leading to long-term discomfort and chronic pain. This speaks to the importance of syncing up with a specialist to ensure you receive an accurate diagnosis.

Nerve Damage – If certain nerves are damaged, that can throw off off how sensory signals are sent and interpreted in the brain. You may no longer be in true physical pain, but a damaged nervous pathway could be relaying signals that the brain interprets as pain, leading to chronic discomfort. Chronic pain can be just as much psychological as it is physical.

Psychological Factors Associated With A Physical Injury – As we noted above, psychological factors can play a role in your expression and interpretation of pain signals, and sometimes our emotions can be thrown into flux following an acute injury. For example, if you were involved in a severe car accident, you may be dealing with more emotions like fear, anxiety or stress, and research has shown that these feelings can negatively affect your pain perception.

Acute pain can turn chronic for both physical and psychological reasons, so it’s imperative that you sync up with a pain specialist, get to the bottom of your issue and begin a targeted treatment problem to rid you from your acute or chronic pain. For more information, or for help with a chronic pain issue, reach out to Dr. Cohn’s office today.