30Sep 2022 by webadmin@macmdaz.com

Healthy Eating for Pain Management

Lifestyle Tips for Chronic Pain
Sticking to foods at the perimeter of the store like fruits and vegetables can help with healthy eating. What we eat is a huge part of our health. If all we consume is junk, we won’t be very healthy. Healthy eating is about variety and moderation. And in the case of chronic pain patients, what you eat can affect pain symptoms; processed foods, non-healthy fats, and greasy food can actually exacerbate pain symptoms. Some food sensitivities can also cause inflammation and increase pain, so it’s important to know what may cause a flare-up. One of our goals this year is to help patients eat healthier to help ease pain symptoms. Eating healthy can be a challenge, but here are some tips for making healthy eating easier and budget friendly. There…
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09May 2022 by webadmin@macmdaz.com

Recreation Therapy Into Pain Management

Lifestyle Tips for Chronic Pain, Therapies & Treatments
Improving strength and flexibility does not have to be all work and no play. Learn how to get patients to pick up fun sports and hobbies that also strengthen their core, lighten their mood, and reduce their pain. Deconditioning and immobility are 2 major affects of chronic pain. Therefore, it is important for physicians to encourage patients to participate in a sport or hobby and learn to have fun again. According to the American Therapeutic Recreation Association, recreation therapy is a treatment service designed to restore, remediate, and rehabilitate a person’s level of functioning and independence in life activities.1 The goals are to promote health and wellness and to reduce, or eliminate, activity limitations caused by a disabling condition that restrict participation in life situations.1 Recreation therapy can be conceptualized…
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03Mar 2021 by webadmin@macmdaz.com

Talking Pain to your Doctor

Chronic Pain Conditions, Lifestyle Tips for Chronic Pain, Therapies & Treatments
How to talk to your doctor about pain On a scale of 0 to 10 what is your pain? Patients who are asked to describe the level of their pain using a numerical scale or smiley faces. Pain scales are used from diagnosis to recovery and often help guide treatment. While the pain scale helps evaluate the pain a patient feels, it’s not the whole story. Here are a few ways of talking to your doctor about pain, to help assess the best treatment options for you. Be Creative Descriptive words can often be helpful when describing your pain to a doctor. Certain conditions or injuries can have specific sensations, such as neuropathy with numbness and tingling sensations can signify nerve damage. Next time you need to describe pain, here…
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16Jan 2019 by webadmin@macmdaz.com

Piriformis Muscle Stretches

Lifestyle Tips for Chronic Pain, Therapies & Treatments
The piriformis muscle may not receive the same attention during workouts as glutes, abs, and biceps; but is one of the most important muscles for those with low back pain, including sciatica. stretching the piriformis muscle Its name means “pear shaped,” the piriformis is a band of muscle in the lower back, and the sciatic nerve runs all the way from the spine down through the legs and in some people runs through the piriformis. The piriformis has an important role in posture alignment. When it is tight or short, the piriformis can compress or irritate the sciatic nerve, which can cause sciatica. Sciatica can cause burning pain in the lower back, tingling or numbness sensations in the legs, and in some cases result in foot pain. Herniated discs, injury…
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15Jan 2019 by webadmin@macmdaz.com

Exercising with Arthritis

Chronic Pain Conditions, Lifestyle Tips for Chronic Pain, Therapies & Treatments
Exercising with arthritis can help reduce stiffness and improve joint mobility. High impact exercises can exacerbate the condition, so low impact gentle exercises Exercising with arthritis has been shown to help reduce pain symptoms. Arthritis can result in impaired coordination and poor posture, and it also affects balance. Exercising can help improve overall body functioning and can help improve reduce risk of falling. Exercising with arthritis has shown to be helpful in managing arthritis. Exercising with arthritis can help reduce stiffness and improve joint mobility. High impact exercises can exacerbate the condition, so low impact gentle exercises are best for reducing pain and inflammation. The American College of Rheumatology recommends exercise as a tactic for managing arthritis. Benefits of Exercise In addition to reducing joint pain, exercising with arthritis has…
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08Jan 2019 by webadmin@macmdaz.com

Computer Posture Can Lead to Back Pain

Chronic Pain Conditions, Lifestyle Tips for Chronic Pain, Therapies & Treatments
Bad Computer Posture Leads to Back Pain Poor computer posture can lead to neck and back pain. Long hours of staring into a computer screen (or even phone screen) can cause stiff neck or back pain. It’s a subconscious thing we do to get a closer look at our screens, and because we don’t know we’re doing it we don’t realize how bad our computer posture is or what it’s doing to our spines. (I keep correcting my posture as a type this) This head-forward computer posture compresses our neck leading to poor concentration, fatigue, headaches, and muscle tension in the neck and shoulders. And did you know symptoms can start in under a minute? When you sit up tall the muscles of your back can easily support your head…
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17Dec 2018 by webadmin@macmdaz.com

Heat Therapy for Chronic pain

Lifestyle Tips for Chronic Pain, Therapies & Treatments
Simple remedies are often the best Those remedies your mom tells you to try, you know the ones.“Put your foot up. Ice it. Use the heating pad.” Can often be the best at relieving lower back pain. Heat therapy is one of those mother approved pain relief therapies. Using heat therapy to relieve lower back pain *apply heat for no longer than 20 minutes at a time. (same goes for icing an injury) Some of the benefits of applying heat therapy to injuries: Blood flow stimulation. Heat dilates blood vessels. When dilated this increases the flow of blood carrying oxygen and nutrients to the painful area.Sensory receptor stimulation. Similar to a massage heat stimulates sensory receptors, which muffles pain signals sent to the brain.Stretching soft tissues. Heat can help stretch…
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10Dec 2018 by webadmin@macmdaz.com

10 Tips to Prevent Neck Pain

Chronic Pain Conditions, Lifestyle Tips for Chronic Pain
It’s probably safe to say that most of us at some point in time have woken up with neck pain or can recall an event or injury that resulted in neck pain. In fact, at any given time, 13% of American adults (women more than men) suffer from neck pain. Neck pain usually arises from muscles, tendons, and ligaments—commonly referred to as the soft tissues—in and around the cervical spine (the neck). Muscle strain and resulting muscle spasm is often caused by an underlying neck problem, such as spinal stenosis, arthritis, or disc degeneration and can be triggered from trauma but frequently occurs insidiously, or for no obvious or identifiable reason. Whether your neck pain is from a chronic condition or if you've just woken up with a stiff neck, the following tips should help…
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05Dec 2018 by webadmin@macmdaz.com

11 Pain Control Techniques

Lifestyle Tips for Chronic Pain, Therapies & Treatments
To prepare for any chronic pain control technique, it is important to learn how to use focus and deep breathing to relax the body. Learning to relax takes practice, especially when you are in pain, but it is definitely worth it to be able to release muscle tension throughout the body and start to remove attention from the pain. Coping techniques for chronic pain begin with controlled deep breathing, as follows: Try putting yourself in a relaxed, reclining position in a dark room. Either shut your eyes or focus on a point. Then begin to slow down your breathing. Breathe deeply, using your chest. If you find your mind wandering or you are distracted, then think of a word, such as the word "Relax," and think it in time with…
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28Nov 2018 by webadmin@macmdaz.com

Sleeping with Lower Back Pain

Lifestyle Tips for Chronic Pain
Lower back pain makes it hard to fall asleep, and it can startle you awake at any hour of the night. To help you reclaim your sleep schedule, here is a simple guide to sleeping with lower back pain: 1. Sleep on your side to relieve pain from a pulled back muscle One of the most common causes of lower back pain is a pulled back muscle, which occurs when a muscle in your lower back is strained or torn as a result of being over-stretched. Symptoms from a pulled back muscle typically resolve within a few days, but the intense pain can make it difficult to fall asleep at night. Worse yet, the longer you lie in the bed, the more de-conditioned your body gets and the worse your…
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