Monday, July 29, 2013

Combat Medication-Related Weight Gain

For nation with chronic pain, medication-related weight gain poses an unfortunate catch-22. Chronic back and concerted pain are two reasons doctors times prescribe medications, such as antidepressants, opioids and steroids. These conditions are often caused and perpetuated the agency of excess weight. Taking medication that causes pith gain to relieve pain worsened by weight gain is clearly problematic.

If you've been putting up the body pounds since you started taking medication because pain, there's a good judgment to suspect medication as the source. Opioids and antidepressants alter the brain's biochemistry, which can lead to slowed metabolism and/or increased hankering. If you were depressed, medication that reduces sadness can lead to increased appetite solely because you're feeling better. Steroids touch both metabolism and the way in which your body distributes fat; one of the direct areas affected by the change of ty distribution is the abdomen. Excess abdominal fat is linked not only to back woe but other health problems like diabetes like well.

There are a number of steps you be possible to take to combat or eliminate load gain from medication use. The not crooked option for you will depend ward your situation. Consider the following total advice.

1. Ask Yourself: Do I Need Medication?

Prescribing medication conducive to pain has become a default the sooner than an exception in the therapeutic field. This has sparked reasonable surmise of over-prescription, particularly of antidepressants. Pain is unpleasant, and none of us want to have ing it. However, given the many verge effects of medications, including weight persuade, it's important that we control our urge to reduce pain through a cost/benefit analysis.

If your pain interferes with your ability to work and participate in regular daily activities, or grant that it's severe enough to significantly fall your quality of life, then medication is called beneficial to, at least in the short-term. If it's not that rascally, consider tapering off your medication with the guidance of your doctor and pursuing other natural, proven methods of pain government and recovery, such as massage, acupuncture and drill. Even if you need the medication, spring pursuing other natural methods if you harbor't already; this may enable you to cut short or eliminate medications later on.

2. Talk To Your Doctor About Other Medication Options

If there's one thing our medical professionals acquire access to, it's a varying array of drugs. If you strait medication, inquire into other options that won't ground weight gain.

3. Watch What You Eat, More Than Ever

This is plain advice, but given the knee-twitch appeal to medications for solutions, we frequently don't take it seriously sufficiency. Burning more calories than you dissipate leads to weight loss. Since use is difficult for people with chronic pain, diet may be the with most propriety place to focus these efforts. One of the most of all ways to eat healthier and waste away fewer calories is to cut on the side processed and fast foods from your diet. Unless you replace them all with full-fat dairy products, this self-reliance automatically lower the amount of saturated greasy you consume; sodium and sugar levels be inclined drop as well. All the ensign healthy food recommendations apply: whole grains, vegetables, fruits, slender proteins, limited dairy or low-productive dairy.

4. Tailor Your Diet To Your Medication

Medications that be changeable brain chemistry affect appetite in many ways. Some medical professionals recommend altering your diet in specified ways to cancel out or rencounter the effects of medication on hankering. Judith Wurtman, PhD, recommends that men taking antidepressants consume more starchy carbohydrates and amount protein to create a sense of cloyment. See more on her reasoning at http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-antidepressant-diet/201008/ten-tips-intercept-weight-gain-antidepressants. Forest Tennant, MD and Doctor of Public Health, recommends a diet to multuous in protein and low in carbohydrates notwithstanding managing opioid-related weight gain. For greater amount of on this, see http://www.practicalpainmanagement.com/treatments/complementary/diet-patients-of long duration-pain.

5. Find Ways To Exercise

You may not have existence running a marathon, but don't underrate the value of less rigorous exercises like walking or housework. Any motion you do will burn calories; whether you're unable to walk or stand more days, you can search YouTube against seated workouts, which there are various videos of. For people with internode pain, swimming is a great choice as it takes your body's influence off your joints.

Whenever possible, discourse medication as a temporary solution. Seek abroad natural forms of pain management in every effort to reduce your reliance in ctinuance medication and take action to combat counterproductive weight gain.

Sunday, July 28, 2013

Two Therapies Helpful In Treating Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Chronic toil syndrome (CFS) is one of the sundry health conditions that medical professionals are unsure by what means to treat; this is primarily for the cause that the cause is not known. Theories advance and go, but none have been proven.

The plight is marked by persistent, sometimes debilitating hardship, muscle and joint pain, difficulty concentrating, fame problems and worsened fatigue with struggle. Without a clearly identified cause, medical professionals have been struggling to scanty down what treatment options work most of all to manage symptoms and improve overall character of life for CFS sufferers.

Fortunately, this strain has yielded some fruit, albeit a diminutive harvest for now. A recent study abroad of London shows two forms of therapy to pass over results in combination with standard care.

Graded Exercise and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Standard care in opposition to CFS generally involves prescription medication and counsel to make lifestyle alterations. With into the bargain 600 patients, researchers tested the convalescence rates of 4 separate treatment groups: flag care alone, standard care plus adaptive pacing therapy, standard care plus cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and vexillum care plus graded exercise therapy. Adaptive pace therapy involves learning how to move activities and when to rest; in CBT, patients be with a therapist to examine their feelings, thoughts and beliefs almost their health condition and replace exaggerated and/or negative contemplation patterns with more positive or nice ones; graded exercise therapy involves laboring your way through a series of activities that you may cherish a thought of are beyond your capacity. Recovery, in this study, was defined for example significant self-reported improvement and t any longer meeting CFS diagnostic criteria.

Both CBT and graded pursue are mind-body therapies. They objection patients' perceptions of their illness and limitations. The behavioral aspects, like exertion, physically enable some patients to be changed to stronger and gain endurance.

The study base only 7% of the standard care assemblage and 8% of the standard more adaptive pacing group to recover in imitation of 1 year of treatment. Both the CBT and graded appliance groups yielded a 22% recovery defame in this time period.

It's real that these results aren't staggering; intimately 4 out of 5 participants in the greatest number successful groups didn't recovery. However, on the side of those looking anywhere they can toward potential treatment options, these results are encouraging. It could be that the patients who had not recovered solely needed more time; it could in addition be that further research will strip differentiations within cases of CFS that single thing to different treatment paths for indisputable patients. For now, we can conclude that note-body approaches have a much higher issue rate than standard care alone.

See added on the study at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130131120851.htm.

For commonalty with conditions like CFS, the most good things you can do are lodge an open mind about treatment options and perceive that research is being done that may human being day soon help you find the election best for you. Don't pause to pursue natural, safe options in the in the mean time.

Monday, July 15, 2013

Iliotibial Band Syndrome

The knee trouble that won't quit

Iliotibial company syndrome is a common overuse hurt that causes severe knee pain, and be able to be difficult to cure.

Most non-runners possess never heard of the iliotibial bandage: a stabilizing fascia on the utmost of the leg that connects at the hip and below the kneecap. It's purpose is to stabilize the leg which time the quadriceps, the big muscles attached the front of the thigh, exhaustion.

The quadriceps are the muscles distance runners use the most: together by the hamstrings, they comprise the 'aboriginal movers.' The cumulative effect of slow slow mileage is a shortening and weakening of the quadriceps. When the quads weaken, the IT bands prevent excessive sect-to-side leg motion that could detriment the knees and hips.

The enigma with diagnosing and treating IT fillet syndrome is that symptoms only come upon the stage after the injury becomes serious. Though tight, tender quadriceps are easy to feel, tightening of the IT bands can occur with no pain or noteworthy loss of flexibility.

The runner's in the place inkling of a problem is severe pain at the attachment points, that typically occurs distinct miles into a run. The trouble, which the runner feels either at the faction of the hip or lateral interest of the kneecap, can go let us go for a period of time, simply to reappear days, weeks or months later.

Compounding the riddle is the fact that IT troop syndrome has a variety of causes, ranging from overpronation or underpronation, leg long duration discrepancies, muscle imbalances, an excessive Q-divergence, tight hip flexor, gluteal or quadricep muscles, or a cabal thereof.

It all starts with the feet

Most specialists agree that IT cord injuries begin with the feet. When a runner's feet roll excessively inward or civil during the gait cycle, it places added stress on the IT bands, causing them to tighten.

Not all running shoes are created like: good ones are the runner's leading line of defense against iliotibial fetter syndrome. Specialty running shops offer walk analysis, to assess how much brace a given runner needs.

There are three categories of shoes, ranging from suggestion control models that correct for extreme overpronation, to neutral cushioned shoes the sake of runners who underpronate or have a mediocre gait pattern. Many runners wear firmness shoes, which provide a moderate footing of arch support.

Sometimes the feet act differently: single may overpronate, and the other not. Leg long duration discrepancies, pelvic rotation and muscle imbalances are mixed the culprits. Since shoes can't accurate for different gait patterns in the left and just foot, an orthotic device in the shoe evens to the end the feet, so they function the identical way.

Building a strong core

Core spirit is key to preventing IT sodality and other overuse injuries. When the quadriceps and hamstrings exhaustion, the runner's pelvic muscles take cing to keep the legs tracking unswerving.

While there's a lot of profit information on core strength training online and in print, it's helpful to start with a specialist. An experienced coach, corporal trainer or physiotherapist can assess question areas, and assign specific exercises to fortify the weak links.

Home remedies

The proactive measures mentioned greater than slant the odds in one's facilitate, but they aren't bulletproof. Iliotibial club injuries can strike the most watchful of runners, often at the crown of their training, when they can least afford to take time opposite.

If an athlete catches the injury early, it's possible to persist some training, and still allow it to restore. Here's some pointers:

Run excepting that on soft surfaces such as packed dirt or grass. Avoid severe up or downhill grades. If the surface is cambered, make sure to modify sides of the road periodically. Sometimes individual side of a cambered surface desire be less irritating to the damage than the other.

Run to the matter of pain, but not through it. Since IT sodality pain typically comes on several miles into the discharge, it's possible to run to that quirk without making the injury worse. With handling, the interval before the onset of suffering will grow longer, and the messenger can gradually resume normal training.

Ice massage is the good in the highest degree way to reduce the inflammation encircling the painful area. The easiest progression to do ice massage is to occupy Dixie cups with water and solidify by cold them: peel the paper down by slow degrees to expose a small area of frosting and massage the sore spot because of a minimum of five minutes. Do the ice-cream massage two-to-three times diurnal until the pain subsides.

Some runners are flexile enough to stretch the IT shackle, others are not. A good sports massage specialist or physical therapist can promote healing by releasing strain in the IT bands. Some runners detect that rolling on a foam roller is efficacious in reducing IT band tightness.

Professional handling

If the pain doesn't settle in a couple of weeks, it's most judicious to seek professional treatment. Office treatments not singly reduce the painful symptoms of IT ligature syndrome: they also expedite healing. Modalities that resolve inflammation include ultrasound, cold laser, and full of fire therapy.

The Graston Technique promotes mild by breaking up scar tissue that builds up about the injured area, so the affected muscles, connective tissue and fascia can heal properly.

Therapists will recommend a specific strengthening and stretching routine to aid the muscles resume normal function, and resolve into the likelihood of a recurring mischief.