chronic pain

The Overall Health Benefits Of Exercise

/ Thomas Cohn, MD

exercise benefitsExercise isn’t just a way to stay in shape or calm inflammation, it also has enormous benefits for our overall health. In fact, new research shows that it doesn’t really matter whether your walk or run, so long as you are getting regular exercise.

According to new research, if you want to improve your overall health and reduce your risk of all-cause mortality, make sure you get some type of exercise on a regular basis. It doesn’t really matter whether it’s bi-weekly kickboxing classes or a 30-minute walk around the neighborhood with your dog, so long as you’re moving and working muscle groups.

The findings come on the heels of a study of more than 4,800 adults by the Journal of the American Heart Association. For their study, researchers sorted activity into two different categories – total minutes of activity per day and total minutes of intense or concentrated activity.

The Benefits Of Activity

You may assume that individuals who participated in more concentrated exercise would fare better than individuals who just walked or moved around, but that wasn’t really the case. The study found that neither type of activity had a significant edge over the other. According to researchers, individuals who clocked roughly 30 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise a day were significantly less likely to die from any cause than people who got none. Participants who exercised an hour or more each day fared even better.

“The key message based on the results presented is that total physical activity (i.e., of any bout duration) provides important health benefits,” the study authors wrote.

Cardio workouts not only help with your overall health, but they can provide some other benefits as well, like increased blood flow, enhanced memory and improved mood. The overall message from the study is that the more you move, the healthier you are likely to be.

The Only Advice You Need For Treating Chronic Pain

/ Thomas Cohn, MD

chronic pain suicideChronic pain comes in so many unique forms, and everyone experiences pain differently. Consequently, there is no one-size-fits-all solution to chronic pain. So as the title of this blog implies, how are we going to provide you with the only advice you need for treating chronic pain? Read on to find out.

Managing Chronic Pain

When it comes to managing carpal tunnel, lumbar spine pain or chronic migraines, there’s really only one piece of advice you should abide by when caring for your condition, and that’s this – Find what works for you, and stick to it.

As a medical professional, I always want to do my reading and examine the science behind pain management techniques. That’s why I’m hesitant to unconditionally provide support for things like medical marijuana and Kratom. There’s simply so much that we don’t know about individualizes strains and how they react to each person individually for most doctors to 100 percent support their use to treat pain.

That being said, we can 100 percent support a person who has found a relief through these methods. At the end of the day, our goal as pain specialists is to help you manage, reduce and ultimately eliminate your pain. If one of these solutions works for you, we’re going to be your biggest supporter, but that doesn’t mean we’ll blindly prescribe the same treatment for someone else dealing with a different pain problem. What works for one may cause a rash of problems in someone else. If there was a magic pill to treat pain, our job would be easy, but there’s not, so pain care requires a highly individualized approach.

Finding What Works

As I’ve mentioned on the blog before, I have struggled with my own pain problems throughout my life. I deal with regular occurrences of back pain, and it took me a while to find out what works to reduce flare ups and keep pain from controlling my life. It’s rarely easy, but that’s the challenge of pain care. I have to make time to get regular exercise, to eat healthy foods and to stretch before a partake in activity. It would be easier to stay on the couch or sleep in a little longer, but I know that doing so means a day with more pain. By finding what works and sticking to the plan, I’ve been able to take control of my back pain.

You can do the same. Whether that involves exercising in the evening, avoiding caffeinated beverages, a daily Kratom pill or acupuncture, when you find something that works, stick with it, but also build on it. If morning exercise helps, see how you body responds to morning exercise and another therapy technique. Keep trying new things until you’ve optimized a treatment plan that greatly reduces or eliminates your pain. Remember that it’s not going to be easy, but if you’re truly committed to finding a solution, you’ll make these treatments a priority.

If you need help developing a care plan or figuring out new treatment techniques to try, don’t hesitate to reach out to our clinic. Because at the end of the day, we want to find a solution that works for you.

Apitherapy – Why All Alternative Treatment Options Aren’t The Same

/ Thomas Cohn, MD

apitherapyIf you’ve been following our blog for some time, you know that our goal is to help everyone find a solution to their pain problem. If you find something that works for you, then stick with it. That being said, not all alternative methods are created the same, and some can be downright dangerous.

That’s the lesson we learned when a 55-year-old woman recently died due to complications from apitherapy. For those of you who know your word origins, you might be able to figure out what apitherapy is – bee therapy. More specifically, apitherapy is known as live bee acupuncture.

Apitherapy Gone Wrong

We’re not saying the therapeutic technique is bonkers, because some people swear by it, and as is our motto, we want everyone to find a solution to their individual pain problem, so if it’s working for you, more power to you. That being said, even if it seems safe, it’s clear that we don’t know as much as we thought we did about the therapy technique.

According to the news reports, the 55-year-old woman had been undergoing apitherapy for more than two years without problems. However, during her most recent session, she developed a severe reaction and began wheezing, coughing, and suffering from shortness of breath. She eventually lost consciousness and was taken to an emergency facility. She died a couple weeks later of multiple organ failure. Medical researchers are saying it’s the first documented apitherapy death where the individual had previously been tolerant of the bee stings. Medical researchers who studied the woman’s case concluded that apitherapy is an “unsafe and unadvisable” treatment option.

Like a lot of things in this world, apitherapy has become more popular after being championed by an uninformed celebrity. In 2016, Gwyneth Paltrow touted the “thousands-of-years-old treatment” as something she tried for an old injury. Gerard Butler also said he received a bee sting injection in an attempt to calm inflammation from stunt work, but he ended up hospitalized after having a poor reaction to the injection. He said he felt like his heart might explode and it was as if he had ants crawling under his skin.

What Doctors Are Saying

The theory behind apitherapy is that bee stings cause inflammation, which in turns leads to an inflammatory response from your body. The hope is that the inflammatory response will address both the inflammation from the bee sting along with other local inflammation in the joints.

Doctors say patients considering the therapy should be fully informed of the dangers of apitherapy prior to treatment. They also recommend that measures be taken to identify if someone could have a bad reaction before receiving a full injection, and that practitioners should be trained in how to manage severe reactions and that they should have specific reaction medications on hand. There should also be a system where the patient can receive emergency response care in a quick manor if needed.

“The public need to be very aware of the unorthodox use of allergens such as bee venom,” said Amena Warner, Head of Clinical Services for Allergy UK. “This will come with risk and, in susceptible individuals, can lead to serious life threatening reactions.”

Words To Live By From Stephen Hawking

/ Thomas Cohn, MD

This week marked the passage of Stephen Hawking. He was one of the most well-known physicists across the globe. He was a remarkable physicist who described theories on the origins of the universe. He worked on explanations of the Big Bang theory and on black holes among other things. He has been considered one of the world’s greatest thinkers and geniuses.

One of the most striking things about him was that at 21, he was diagnosed with ALS and only given two years to live, but he reached the age of 76. For most of his life he was paralyzed completed, and for years unable to talk, communicating through a computer with only eye movements.  Since his twenties he lived his life from his wheelchair.

Words To Remember

Some of his more profound quotes have been published in the last week in tribute to his passing. Two of them are worth thinking about for everyone. The first one is on living with his crippling ALS:

“I accept that there are some things I can’t do. But they are mostly things I don’t particularly want to do anyway…I seem to manage to do anything that I really want.”

The second quote is on life in general:

“One, remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Two, never give up work….Three, if you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don’t throw if away.”

These quotes say a lot about life and having a disability of any sort. Sometimes it is better to let someone else deliver a message. Spend some time thinking about all of what Stephen Hawking said in the above quotes and maybe reflect on how it might impact on your own life.

Have a wonderful week. All the best,

Dr. Cohn.

The Daith Piercing and Fibromyalgia

/ Thomas Cohn, MD

daith piercing fibromyalgiaIf you’re a frequent reader of the blog, you’re probably aware of our work with Dr. Chris Blatchey, a specialist in the United Kingdom who is hoping to help us get a better understanding of the link between headaches and the Daith piercing as a potential treatment option. If you haven’t read his report on the subject, or if you’ve undergone the Daith piercing procedure and haven’t yet taken his survey, please consider taking a few minutes to help advance our understanding of the subject.

Fibromyalgia and Piercing Treatment

We’ve been communicating back and forth throughout this process, and recently we ended up on the subject of using the Daith piercing to treat fibromyalgia. Dr. Blatchley said he’s been in contact with some professional piercers who perform the Daith piercing, and they mentioned that they have seen a rise in the number of patients who are seeking out the Daith to see if it can provide some symptom relief from their fibromyalgia.

According to these conversations, Dr. Blatchley said that it seems that the Daith piercing is less effective for treating some fibromyalgia symptoms than it is for treating migraines. He suggests patients with fibromyalgia see improvement in about 50 percent of cases, but he also notes that the relief could be because their fibromylagia pain was actually misdiagnosed. Fibromyalgia is difficult to diagnose and even harder to treat, but if we can find commonalities between individuals diagnosed with fibromyalgia and successfully treated with options like the Daith piercing, we may be able to grow as a medical community and better serve our patients.

At this point, we’re not saying that you should go out and get your ear pierced if you are dealing with fibromyalgia, but it’s an avenue worth exploring if multiple other options have failed. We are just scratching the surface of understanding the true link between the two, but others have had success with the treatment. I just received this message from Angela over the weekend, who just want to reach out and say thanks for continuing to help look for solutions to headaches, fibromyalgia and chronic pain.

“I have fibromyalgia, TMJ (temporomandibular joint dysfunction) and chronic headaches. I got both sides pierced for a total of 20 dollars and haven’t had a headache since. My pain has decreased significantly.”

If you know anybody who has had the Daith piercing, please consider sending them to Dr. Blatchley’s site to help further our understanding of pain pathologies. And if you want to learn more about the Daith piercing, we’ve included some of the blogs we’ve penned on the subject below. The first blog listed has more than 200 comments from readers, and many of them share their experiences with the piercing in the comment section. Feel free to check it out to learn more.

Migraines and Daith Piercings
Early Findings From the Daith Piercing Study
An Update on Daith Piercings

Thanks for reading,
Dr. Cohn