Pain and its impact on us is staggering. For example:
• Pain affects more Americans than diabetes, heart disease, and cancer combined.
• Pain is cited as the most common reason Americans access the health care system. It is a leading cause of disability and it is a major contributor to healthcare costs.
• According to the National Center for Health Statistics (2006), approximately 76.2 million, one in every four Americans, have suffered from pain that lasts longer than 24 hours and millions more suffer from acute pain.
• Chronic pain is the most common cause of long-term disability.Even though pain is a significant part of health care and health costs, therapies to address it through the standard of care are minimal. Pain medications can be addictive and still not effective, and as you take more and more you risk an overdose or complications with another medication. Some people self-medicate with alcohol or illegal drugs, which not only can have other health effects but may end up making the pain worse. Genetic testing can help you see which therapies you will respond the best to as well as tell you which medications you will receive no benefit from at all, and only risk the possibility of addiction.Outside of pain medications, there are a number of natural options, as well as less invasive therapies that have strong evidence of efficacy. Physical medicine such as chiropractic care and acupuncture can substantially decrease many people’s chronic pain without the side effects of drugs.
Certain nutrients can also help with minimizing pain and improving strength and structure to minimize the progression of issues that are at the root of causation.
Some people will make high levels of a hormone called leptin, which will tell your body to gain more weight and will also attack cartilage, destroy joints and contribute to pain. By measuring and treating this can be prevented. Injections, such as prolozone have high success rates of treating pain, both acute and chronic.
By changing your diet, and changing your biochemistry, you can change your internal environment which can lead to a decrease or cessation of pain and inflammation. Inflammation can be controlled by finding the cause and treating accordingly in a way that can help to limit and reverse the devastating impact of pain and give your life back to you.Inflammation often begins in the gut. Inflammation in the gut can be especially damaging to the body, starting with the gut itself. One possible impact of inflammation in the gut is diverticulosis, where pockets form in the walls of the intestines. If you develop diverticulosis, you risk having attacks of diverticulitis- a painful attack of acute inflammation that may require hospitalization. The cells in our intestinal wall form a tight junction that extracts nutrients, keeps our food moving, and forms a barrier. One of the things that gut inflammation does over the long term is to loosen those cell junctions. This is the “leaky gut” syndrome you may have heard about. Leaky gut impacts our ability to absorb nutrients, causes pain and cramping in the gut, and perpetuates inflammation throughout the body. Leaky gut also elevates levels of Zonulin in the body, which drives the spiral of inflammation higher and higher, making the inflammation chronic and the gut harder to heal. In fact, high Zonulin levels are suspected to be a major cause of autoimmune diseases, and not just those that are known to start in the gut like Crohn’s Disease, inflammatory bowel disease, and Celiac Disease, but also other autoimmune conditions like rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, and others. Healing the gut by identifying allergens and rebuilding the gut lining with probiotics and other supplements can be the step forward you might need for pain management.
