Nature Creation ArticlesHealth, Pain, Therapy, Solution

If stress is not han­dled prop­erly, more seri­ous ill­nesses may result.

How Seri­ous a Threat to Your Health is Stress?

Many believe that prac­ti­cally every ill­ness has stress reac­tion as a con­tribut­ing fac­tor. Some­one who han­dles stress well just sim­ply doesn’t get sick.

How often are the times you have caught a cold or flu also been times when you were wor­ried or stressed about some­thing more than nor­mal, or even deal­ing with some kind of trauma?

This is why it is wise to remem­ber what­ever reme­dies you choose for tem­po­rary relief, there must in addi­tion be con­scious work toward releas­ing stress pat­terns and habits that keep the worry mode, or anx­i­ety in place.

Here’s some­thing to think about. Is stress dif­fer­ent today than it was a few decades ago? Con­tem­po­rary stress tends to be more per­va­sive, per­sis­tent and insid­i­ous because it stems pri­mar­ily from psy­cho­log­i­cal rather than phys­i­cal threats. It is asso­ci­ated with ingrained and imme­di­ate reac­tions over which we have no con­trol and were orig­i­nally designed to be ben­e­fi­cial such as:

* The heart rate and blood pres­sure soar to increase the flow of blood to the brain to improve deci­sion mak­ing.
* The blood sugar rises to fur­nish more fuel for energy as the result of the break­down of glyco­gen, fat and pro­tein stores.
* The blood is shunted away from the gut, where its not imme­di­ately needed for pur­poses of diges­tion. It goes to the large mus­cles of the arms and legs to pro­vide more strength in com­bat, or greater speed in get­ting away from a scene of poten­tial peril.
* Also clot­ting occurs more quickly to pre­vent blood loss from lac­er­a­tions or inter­nal hemorrhage.

These and myr­iad of other imme­di­ate and auto­matic responses have been exquis­itely honed over the lengthy course of human evo­lu­tion as life sav­ing mea­sures to facil­i­tate prim­i­tive man’s abil­ity to deal with phys­i­cal challenges.

How­ever, the nature of stress for mod­ern man is not an occa­sional con­fronta­tion with a saber-toothed tiger or a hos­tile war­rior but rather a host of emo­tional threats like get­ting stuck in traf­fic and fights or mis­un­der­stand­ings with cus­tomers, co-workers, or fam­ily mem­bers, that often occur sev­eral times a day.

Unfor­tu­nately, our bod­ies still react with these same, archaic fight or flight responses that are not only use­ful­ness but poten­tially dam­ag­ing and deadly. Repeat­edly invoked, it is not hard to see how they can con­tribute to hyper­ten­sion, strokes, heart attacks, dia­betes, ulcers, neck or low back pain and other “Dis­eases of Civ­i­liza­tion.“

Feel­ing a Bit Stressed These Days?

You’re not alone! Traf­fic jams, dead­lines, bills to pay, job changes, end­less chores and errands, rela­tion­ships, fam­ily prob­lems, it’s always some­thing and of course we are on the brink of war.

Stress is expe­ri­enced by every­one at one time or another. It requires the body to make phys­i­cal and chem­i­cal adjust­ments in order to main­tain the nec­es­sary phys­i­o­log­i­cal bal­ance for sur­vival. A rac­ing heart, a burst of energy, and mus­cle ten­sion are the body’s phys­i­cal responses to stress. When faced with dan­ger, some of the first stress reac­tions are a rise in blood pres­sure, quicker breath­ing and heart beat, and dilated pupils. Sight and hear­ing become more alert.

This reac­tion is an instinc­tive response that pro­tects us from threats to our sur­vival. Phys­i­o­log­i­cal changes are part of the “fight or flight” response, which pre­pares and ener­gizes a per­son to con­front or flee from dan­ger. After the threat has passed or a change takes place, the “alarm” signs dis­ap­pear. The body is still aroused but is adapt­ing to the change.

When you “gear up” under stress, your body begins to do more of some things and less of oth­ers. For exam­ple, blood cir­cu­la­tion increases, but diges­tion slows down or even stops. First symp­toms of these diges­tive orders may be Per­sis­tent Indi­ges­tion or Colitis.

Once the stress ends, your body goes to work to restore the bal­ance. How­ever, if stress returns too soon, your body will never have time to get back on an even keel. Even­tu­ally, this can lead to major health prob­lems. Exhaus­tion occurs, caus­ing dam­age to the person’s phys­i­cal and emo­tional well-being. If the stress is short-term, chances are good that it can be dealt with. It is long-term stress that causes the body to break down and has many real phys­i­cal effects.

Some of the dis­or­ders asso­ci­ated with stress are:

* Anx­i­ety
* High blood pres­sure
* Headaches
* Depres­sion
* Weak­ened Immune Sys­tem
* Higher Cho­les­terol Lev­els
* Sleep­less­ness
* Impo­tence
* Migraine Headaches
* Diar­rhea
* Loss of Appetite
* Increased Appetite

If stress is not han­dled prop­erly, then more seri­ous ill­nesses will result.

There is no escape from stress. You must learn how to han­dle it.

Relax­ation is often dif­fi­cult. But nec­es­sary to alle­vi­ate the stress. Nature Cre­ation (www.naturecreation.com) is one com­pany who man­u­fac­tures nat­ural herbal ther­apy packs. The prod­ucts are filled with 9 essen­tial nat­ural herbs, which the essence of scents will bring nat­ural relax­ation stim­u­la­tion to your brain. In addi­tion, the prod­ucts can also be used as hot or cold ther­apy. These are excel­lent if you have mus­cle stiff­ness, body pain, headache, cramps or awk­ward twist of your nerves.

The design of Nature Cre­ation prod­ucts are ergonom­i­cally fit com­fort­ably to the con­tour of your body. There are 18 patented shapes and sizes and five unique col­ors to choose.

Please visit the com­pany web­site to learn more of the prod­ucts and all the benefits.

Tweet This Post

A headache is pain or dis­com­fort in the head, scalp, or neck. Seri­ous causes of headaches are extremely rare. Most peo­ple with headaches can feel much bet­ter by mak­ing lifestyle changes, learn­ing ways to relax, and occa­sion­ally by tak­ing medications.

Com­mon Causes

Ten­sion headaches are due to tight, con­tracted mus­cles in your shoul­ders, neck, scalp, and jaw. They are often related to stress, depres­sion, or anx­i­ety. Over­work­ing, not get­ting enough sleep, miss­ing meals, and using alco­hol or street drugs can make you more sus­cep­ti­ble to them. Headaches can be trig­gered by choco­late, cheese, and monosodium glu­ta­mate (MSG). Peo­ple who drink caf­feine can have headaches when they don’t get their usual daily amount.

Other com­mon causes include:

* Hold­ing your head in one posi­tion for a long time, like at a com­puter, micro­scope, or type­writer
* Poor sleep posi­tion
* Overex­ert­ing your­self
* Clench­ing or grind­ing your teeth

Ten­sion headaches tend to be on both sides of your head. They often start at the back of your head and spread for­ward. The pain may feel dull or squeez­ing, like a tight band or vice. Your shoul­ders, neck, or jaw may feel tight and sore.

Migraine headaches are severe, recur­rent headaches gen­er­ally accom­pa­nied by other symp­toms like visual dis­tur­bances or nau­sea. They tend to begin on one side of your head, although the pain may spread to both sides. You may have an “aura” (warn­ing symp­toms that start before your headache) and feel throb­bing, pound­ing, or pul­sat­ing pain.

For infor­ma­tion on migraine, see migraine headache.

Other types of headaches:

* Clus­ter headaches are sharp, extremely painful headaches that tend to occur sev­eral times per day for months and then go away for a sim­i­lar period. They are far less com­mon.
* Sinus headaches cause pain in the front of your head and face. They are due to inflam­ma­tion in the sinus pas­sages that lie behind the cheeks, nose, and eyes. The pain tends to be worse when you bend for­ward and when you first wake up in the morn­ing. Post­nasal drip, sore throat, and nasal dis­charge usu­ally occur with these headaches.

Headaches may occur if you have a cold, the flu, fever, or pre­men­strual syndrome.

If you are over age 50 and are expe­ri­enc­ing headaches for the first time, a con­di­tion called tem­po­ral arteri­tis may prove to be the cause. Symp­toms of this con­di­tion include impaired vision and pain aggra­vated by chew­ing. There is a risk of becom­ing blind with this con­di­tion. There­fore, it must be treated by your doc­tor right away.

Rare causes of headache include:

* Brain aneurysm — a weak­en­ing of the wall of a blood ves­sel that can rup­ture and bleed into the brain
* Brain tumor
* Stroke or TIA
* Brain infec­tion like menin­gi­tis or encephalitis

Home Care

Keep a headache diary to help iden­tify the source or trig­ger of your symp­toms. Then mod­ify your envi­ron­ment or habits to avoid future headaches. When a headache occurs, write down the date and time the headache began, what you ate for the past 24 hours, how long you slept the night before, what you were doing and think­ing about just before the headache started, any stress in your life, how long the headache lasts, and what you did to make it stop. After a period of time, you may begin to see a pattern.

A headache may be relieved by rest­ing with your eyes closed and head sup­ported. Relax­ation tech­niques can help. A mas­sage or heat applied to the back of the upper neck can be effec­tive in reliev­ing ten­sion headaches.

Try aceta­minophen, aspirin, or ibupro­fen for ten­sion headaches. DO NOT give aspirin to chil­dren because of the risk of Reye syndrome.

Migraine headaches may respond to aspirin, naproxen, or com­bi­na­tion migraine medications.

If over-the-counter reme­dies do not con­trol your pain, talk to your doc­tor about pos­si­ble pre­scrip­tion medications.

Pre­scrip­tion med­ica­tions used for migraine headaches include ergo­t­a­mine, dihy­droer­go­t­a­mine, ergo­t­a­mine with caf­feine (Cafer­got), isomethep­tene (Midrin), and trip­tans like suma­trip­tan (Imitrex), riza­trip­tan (Max­alt), eletrip­tan (Rel­pax), almotrip­tan (Axert), and zolmitrip­tan (Zomig). Some­times med­ica­tions to relieve nau­sea and vom­it­ing are help­ful for other migraine symptoms.

If you get headaches often, your doc­tor may pre­scribe med­ica­tion to pre­vent headaches before they occur. Exam­ples of these include:

* Anti­de­pres­sants such as nor­tripty­line (Pamelor), amitripty­line (Elavil), flu­ox­e­tine (Prozac, Sarafem), ser­tra­line (Zoloft), or parox­e­tine (Paxil) for ten­sion or migraine headache
* Beta-blockers such as pro­pra­nolol (Inderal) for fre­quent migraine headaches
* Cal­cium chan­nel block­ers such as ver­a­pamil for fre­quent migraine headaches
* Anti-epileptic med­i­cines such as top­i­ra­mate (Topamax)

If you are using pain med­ica­tions more than 2 days a week, you may be suf­fer­ing from rebound headaches. Rebound headaches are caused by a cycle of using pain med­ica­tions for short-term relief, fol­lowed by the headache pain return­ing for increas­ingly longer peri­ods of time despite tak­ing more pain medications.

All types of pain pills (includ­ing over-the-counter drugs), mus­cle relax­ants, some decon­ges­tants, and caf­feine can cause this pat­tern. If you think this may be a prob­lem for you, talk to your health care provider.
Call your health care provider if

Take the fol­low­ing symp­toms seri­ously. If you can­not see your health care provider imme­di­ately, go to the emer­gency room or call 911:

* Your headache comes on sud­denly and is explo­sive or vio­lent.
* You would describe your headache as “your worst ever”, even if you are prone to headaches.
* Your headache is asso­ci­ated with slurred speech, change in vision, prob­lems mov­ing your arms or legs, loss of bal­ance, con­fu­sion, or mem­ory loss.
* Your headache gets pro­gres­sively worse over a 24-hour period.
* Your headache is accom­pa­nied by fever, stiff neck, nau­sea, and vom­it­ing.
* Your headache occurs with a head injury.
* Your headache is severe and local­ized to one eye with red­ness in that eye.
* You are over age 50 and your headaches just began, espe­cially with impaired vision and pain while chewing.

See your provider soon if:

* Your headaches wake you up from sleep.
* A headache lasts more than a few days.
* Headaches are worse in the morn­ing.
* You have a his­tory of headaches but they have changed in pat­tern or inten­sity.
* You have headaches fre­quently, and there is no known cause.

What to expect at your health care provider’s office

Your health care provider will obtain your med­ical his­tory and will per­form an exam­i­na­tion of your head, eyes, ears, nose, throat, neck, and ner­vous system.

The diag­no­sis is usu­ally based on your his­tory of symp­toms. A “headache diary” may be help­ful for record­ing infor­ma­tion about headaches over a period of time. Your doc­tor may ask ques­tions such as the following:

* Is the headache located in the fore­head, around the eyes, in the back of the head, near the tem­ples, behind the eye­ball, or all over?
* Is the headache on one side only?
* Is this a new type of headache for you?
* Would you describe the headache as throb­bing?
* Is there a pres­sure or band-like sen­sa­tion?
* When does the headache occur? How long have you had headaches? How long does each headache last?
* Does the headache awaken you from sleep? Are the headaches worse dur­ing the day and bet­ter at night?
* Did other symp­toms begin shortly after the headaches began? Do headaches occur repeat­edly?
* Does the headache reach max­i­mum inten­sity over 1 to 2 hours?
* Are the headaches worse when you are lying down? Stand­ing up?
* Are the headaches worse when you cough or strain?
* Do they occur at a spe­cific time related to your men­strual period?
* What home treat­ment have you tried? How effec­tive was it?

Diag­nos­tic tests that may be per­formed include the following:

* Head CT scan
* Head MRI
* Sinuses x-rays
* Tem­po­ral artery biopsy
* Lum­bar puncture

If a migraine is diag­nosed, med­ica­tions that con­tain ergot may be pre­scribed. Tem­po­ral arteri­tis must be treated with steroids to help pre­vent blind­ness. Other dis­or­ders are treated as is appropriate.

Prevention

The fol­low­ing healthy habits can lessen stress and reduce your chance of get­ting headaches:

* Get­ting ade­quate sleep
* Eat­ing a healthy diet
* Exer­cis­ing reg­u­larly
* Stretch­ing your neck and upper body, espe­cially if your work involves typ­ing or using a com­puter
* Learn­ing proper pos­ture
* Quit­ting smok­ing
* Learn­ing to relax using med­i­ta­tion, deep breath­ing, yoga, or other techniques

Tweet This Post

The hol­i­day sea­son, which begins for most Amer­i­cans with Thanks­giv­ing and con­tin­ues through New Year’s Day, often brings unwel­come guests — stress and depres­sion. And it’s no won­der. In an effort to pull off a per­fect hol­i­day, you might find your­self fac­ing a dizzy­ing array of demands — par­ties, shop­ping, bak­ing, clean­ing and enter­tain­ing, to name a few. So much for peace and joy, right?

Actu­ally, with some prac­ti­cal tips, you can min­i­mize the stress and depres­sion that often accom­pany the hol­i­days. You may even end up enjoy­ing the hol­i­days more than you thought you would.
Rec­og­nize hol­i­day triggers

Learn to rec­og­nize com­mon hol­i­day trig­gers, so you can dis­arm them before they lead to a meltdown:

* Rela­tion­ships. Rela­tion­ships can cause tur­moil, con­flict or stress at any time, but ten­sions are often height­ened dur­ing the hol­i­days. Fam­ily mis­un­der­stand­ings and con­flicts can inten­sify — espe­cially if you’re thrust together for sev­eral days. On the other hand, fac­ing the hol­i­days with­out a loved one can be tough and leave you feel­ing lonely and sad.
* Finances. With the added expenses of gifts, travel, food and enter­tain­ment, the hol­i­days can put a strain on your bud­get — and your peace of mind. Not to men­tion that over­spend­ing now can mean finan­cial wor­ries for months to come.
* Phys­i­cal demands. Even die-hard hol­i­day enthu­si­asts may find that the extra shop­ping and social­iz­ing can leave them wiped out. Being exhausted increases your stress, cre­at­ing a vicious cycle. Exer­cise and sleep — good anti­dotes for stress and fatigue — may take a back seat to chores and errands. To top it off, burn­ing the wick at both ends makes you more sus­cep­ti­ble to colds and other unwel­come guests.

When stress is at its peak, it’s hard to stop and regroup. Try to pre­vent stress and depres­sion in the first place, espe­cially if the hol­i­days have taken an emo­tional toll on you in the past.

1. Acknowl­edge your feel­ings. If some­one close to you has recently died or you can’t be with loved ones, real­ize that it’s nor­mal to feel sad­ness and grief. It’s OK to take time to cry or express your feel­ings. You can’t force your­self to be happy just because it’s the hol­i­day sea­son.
2. Reach out. If you feel lonely or iso­lated, seek out com­mu­nity, reli­gious or other social events. They can offer sup­port and com­pan­ion­ship. Vol­un­teer­ing your time to help oth­ers also is a good way to lift your spir­its and broaden your friend­ships.
3. Be real­is­tic. The hol­i­days don’t have to be per­fect or just like last year. As fam­i­lies change and grow, tra­di­tions and rit­u­als often change as well. Choose a few to hold on to, and be open to cre­at­ing new ones. For exam­ple, if your adult chil­dren can’t come to your house, find new ways to cel­e­brate together, such as shar­ing pic­tures, emails or video­tapes.
4. Set aside dif­fer­ences. Try to accept fam­ily mem­bers and friends as they are, even if they don’t live up to all your expec­ta­tions. Set aside griev­ances until a more appro­pri­ate time for dis­cus­sion. And be under­stand­ing if oth­ers get upset or dis­tressed when some­thing goes awry. Chances are they’re feel­ing the effects of hol­i­day stress and depres­sion too.
5. Stick to a bud­get. Before you go gift and food shop­ping, decide how much money you can afford to spend. Then stick to your bud­get. Don’t try to buy hap­pi­ness with an avalanche of gifts. Try these alter­na­tives: Donate to a char­ity in someone’s name, give home­made gifts or start a fam­ily gift exchange.
6. Plan ahead. Set aside spe­cific days for shop­ping, bak­ing, vis­it­ing friends and other activ­i­ties. Plan your menus and then make your shop­ping list. That’ll help pre­vent last-minute scram­bling to buy for­got­ten ingre­di­ents. And make sure to line up help for party prep and cleanup.
7. Learn to say no. Say­ing yes when you should say no can leave you feel­ing resent­ful and over­whelmed. Friends and col­leagues will under­stand if you can’t par­tic­i­pate in every project or activ­ity. If it’s not pos­si­ble to say no when your boss asks you to work over­time, try to remove some­thing else from your agenda to make up for the lost time.
8. Don’t aban­don healthy habits. Don’t let the hol­i­days become a free-for-all. Overindul­gence only adds to your stress and guilt. Have a healthy snack before hol­i­day par­ties so that you don’t go over­board on sweets, cheese or drinks. Con­tinue to get plenty of sleep and phys­i­cal activ­ity.
9. Take a breather. Make some time for your­self. Spend­ing just 15 min­utes alone, with­out dis­trac­tions, may refresh you enough to han­dle every­thing you need to do. Take a walk at night and stargaze. Lis­ten to sooth­ing music. Find some­thing that reduces stress by clear­ing your mind, slow­ing your breath­ing and restor­ing inner calm.
10. Seek pro­fes­sional help if you need it. Despite your best efforts, you may find your­self feel­ing per­sis­tently sad or anx­ious, plagued by phys­i­cal com­plaints, unable to sleep, irri­ta­ble and hope­less, and unable to face rou­tine chores. If these feel­ings last for a while, talk to your doc­tor or a men­tal health professional.

Take con­trol of the holidays

Don’t let the hol­i­days become some­thing you dread. Instead, take steps to pre­vent the stress and depres­sion that can descend dur­ing the hol­i­days. With a lit­tle plan­ning and some pos­i­tive think­ing, you may find that you enjoy the hol­i­days this year more than you thought you could.

Tweet This Post

Migraines are chronic headaches that can cause sig­nif­i­cant pain for hours or even days. Symp­toms can be so severe that all you can think about is find­ing a dark, quiet place to lie down.

Some migraines are pre­ceded or accom­pa­nied by sen­sory warn­ing symp­toms or signs (auras), such as flashes of light, blind spots or tin­gling in your arm or leg. A migraine is often accom­pa­nied by nau­sea, vom­it­ing, and extreme sen­si­tiv­ity to light and sound.

Although there’s no cure, med­ica­tions can help reduce the fre­quency and sever­ity of migraines. If treat­ment hasn’t worked for you in the past, it’s worth talk­ing to your doc­tor about try­ing a dif­fer­ent migraine med­ica­tion. The right med­i­cines com­bined with self-help reme­dies and lifestyle changes may make a tremen­dous dif­fer­ence.
Migraines usu­ally begin in child­hood, ado­les­cence or early adult­hood. A typ­i­cal migraine attack pro­duces some or all of these signs and symptoms:

* Mod­er­ate to severe pain, which may be con­fined to one side of the head or may affect both sides
* Head pain with a pul­sat­ing or throb­bing qual­ity
* Pain that wors­ens with phys­i­cal activ­ity
* Pain that inter­feres with your reg­u­lar activ­i­ties
* Nau­sea with or with­out vom­it­ing
* Sen­si­tiv­ity to light and sound

When untreated, a migraine typ­i­cally lasts from four to 72 hours, but the fre­quency with which headaches occur varies from per­son to per­son. You may have migraines sev­eral times a month or much less frequently.

Not all migraines are the same. Most peo­ple expe­ri­ence migraines with­out auras, which were pre­vi­ously called com­mon migraines. Some peo­ple have migraines with auras, which were pre­vi­ously called clas­sic migraines. Auras can include changes to your vision, such as see­ing flashes of light, and feel­ing pins and nee­dles in an arm or leg.

Whether or not you have auras, you may have one or more sen­sa­tions of pre­mo­ni­tion (pro­drome) sev­eral hours or a day or so before your headache actu­ally strikes, including:

* Feel­ings of ela­tion or intense energy
* Crav­ings for sweets
* Thirst
* Drowsi­ness
* Irri­tabil­ity or depression

Although much about the cause of migraines isn’t under­stood, genet­ics and envi­ron­men­tal fac­tors seem to both play a role.

Migraines may be caused by changes in the trigem­i­nal nerve, a major pain path­way. Imbal­ances in brain chem­i­cals, includ­ing sero­tonin — which helps reg­u­late pain in your ner­vous sys­tem — also may be involved.

Sero­tonin lev­els drop dur­ing migraines. This may trig­ger your trigem­i­nal sys­tem to release sub­stances called neu­ropep­tides, which travel to your brain’s outer cov­er­ing (meninges). The result is headache pain.

Migraine trig­gers
What­ever the exact mech­a­nism of the headaches, a num­ber of things may trig­ger them. Com­mon migraine trig­gers include:

* Hor­monal changes in women. Fluc­tu­a­tions in estro­gen seem to trig­ger headaches in many women with known migraines. Women with a his­tory of migraines often report headaches imme­di­ately before or dur­ing their peri­ods, when they have a major drop in estro­gen. Oth­ers have an increased ten­dency to develop migraines dur­ing preg­nancy or menopause. Hor­monal med­ica­tions — such as oral con­tra­cep­tives and hor­mone replace­ment ther­apy — also may worsen migraines, though some women find it’s ben­e­fi­cial to take them.
* Foods. Some migraines appear to be trig­gered by cer­tain foods. Com­mon offend­ers include alco­hol, espe­cially beer and red wine; aged cheeses; choco­late; aspar­tame; overuse of caf­feine; monosodium glu­ta­mate — a key ingre­di­ent in some Asian foods; salty foods; and processed foods. Skip­ping meals or fast­ing also can trig­ger migraines.
* Stress. Stress at work or home can insti­gate migraines.
* Sen­sory stim­uli. Bright lights and sun glare can pro­duce migraines, as can loud sounds. Unusual smells — includ­ing pleas­ant scents, such as per­fume, and unpleas­ant odors, such as paint thin­ner and sec­ond­hand smoke, can also trig­ger migraines.
* Changes in wake-sleep pat­tern. Either miss­ing sleep or get­ting too much sleep may serve as a trig­ger for migraine attacks in some indi­vid­u­als, as can jet lag.
* Phys­i­cal fac­tors. Intense phys­i­cal exer­tion, includ­ing sex­ual activ­ity, may pro­voke migraines.
* Changes in the envi­ron­ment. A change of weather or baro­met­ric pres­sure can prompt a migraine.
* Med­ica­tions. Cer­tain med­ica­tions can aggra­vate migraines.
Sev­eral fac­tors make you more prone to hav­ing migraines.

* Hav­ing a fam­ily his­tory. Many peo­ple with migraines have a fam­ily his­tory of migraine. If one or both of your par­ents have migraines, there’s a good chance you will too.
* Being younger than 40. Half the peo­ple who suf­fer from migraines started get­ting them before they were 20 and migraines are most com­mon in peo­ple who are between 30 and 39 years old.
* Being female. Women are three times as likely to have migraines as men are. Headaches tend to affect boys more than girls dur­ing child­hood, but by the time of puberty, more girls are affected.
* Expe­ri­enc­ing hor­monal changes. If you’re a woman with migraines, you may find that your headaches begin just before or shortly after onset of men­stru­a­tion. They may also change dur­ing preg­nancy or menopause. Some women report that their migraines got worse dur­ing the first trimester of a preg­nancy. Though for many, the migraines improved dur­ing later stages in the preg­nancy.
Some­times your efforts to con­trol your pain cause problems.

* Abdom­i­nal prob­lems. Non­s­teroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), such as ibupro­fen (Advil, Motrin, oth­ers) and aspirin, may cause abdom­i­nal pain, bleed­ing and ulcers — espe­cially if taken in large doses or for a long period of time.
* Rebound headaches. In addi­tion, if you take over-the-counter or pre­scrip­tion headache med­ica­tions more than nine days per month or in high doses, you may be set­ting your­self up for a seri­ous com­pli­ca­tion known as rebound headaches. Rebound headaches occur when med­ica­tions not only stop reliev­ing pain, but actu­ally begin to cause headaches. You then use more pain med­ica­tion, which traps you in a vicious cycle.
* Sero­tonin syn­drome. This poten­tially life-threatening drug inter­ac­tion can occur if you take migraine med­i­cines called trip­tans, such as suma­trip­tan (Imitrex) or zolmitrip­tan (Zomig), along with anti­de­pres­sants known as selec­tive sero­tonin reup­take inhibitors (SSRIs) or sero­tonin and nor­ep­i­neph­rine reup­take inhibitors (SNRIs). Some com­mon SSRIs include Zoloft, Prozac and Paxil. SNRIs include Cym­balta and Effexor. For­tu­nately, sero­tonin syn­drome is rare.

Non­tra­di­tional ther­a­pies may be help­ful if you have chronic headache pain:

* Acupunc­ture. In this treat­ment, a prac­ti­tioner inserts many thin, dis­pos­able nee­dles into sev­eral areas of your skin at defined points. A num­ber of clin­i­cal tri­als have found that acupunc­ture may be help­ful for headache pain.
* Biofeed­back. Biofeed­back appears to be espe­cially effec­tive in reliev­ing migraine pain. This relax­ation tech­nique uses spe­cial equip­ment to teach you how to mon­i­tor and con­trol cer­tain phys­i­cal responses related to stress, such as mus­cle ten­sion.
* Mas­sage. Mas­sage may help reduce the fre­quency of migraines. And it can improve the qual­ity of your sleep, which can, in turn, help pre­vent migraines.
* Herbs, vit­a­mins and min­er­als. There is some evi­dence that the herbs fever­few and but­ter­bur may pre­vent migraines or reduce their sever­ity. A high dose of riboflavin (vit­a­min B-2) also may pre­vent migraines by cor­rect­ing tiny defi­cien­cies in the brain cells. Coen­zyme Q10 sup­ple­ments may be help­ful in some indi­vid­u­als. Oral mag­ne­sium sul­fate sup­ple­ments may reduce the fre­quency of headaches in some peo­ple, although stud­ies don’t all agree on this issue. Mag­ne­sium taken intra­venously seems to help some peo­ple dur­ing an acute headache, par­tic­u­larly peo­ple with mag­ne­sium defi­cien­cies. Ask your doc­tor if these treat­ments are right for you. Don’t use fever­few or but­ter­bur if you’re preg­nant.
Whether or not you take pre­ven­tive med­ica­tions, you may ben­e­fit from lifestyle changes that can help reduce the num­ber and sever­ity of migraines. One or more of these sug­ges­tions may be help­ful for you:

* Avoid trig­gers. If cer­tain foods seem to have trig­gered your headaches in the past, avoid those foods. If cer­tain scents are a prob­lem, try to avoid them. In gen­eral, estab­lish a daily rou­tine with reg­u­lar sleep pat­terns and reg­u­lar meals. In addi­tion, try to con­trol stress.
* Exer­cise reg­u­larly. Reg­u­lar aer­o­bic exer­cise reduces ten­sion and can help pre­vent migraines. If your doc­tor agrees, choose any aer­o­bic exer­cise you enjoy, includ­ing walk­ing, swim­ming and cycling. Warm up slowly, how­ever, because sud­den, intense exer­cise can cause headaches. Obe­sity is also thought to be a fac­tor in migraines, and reg­u­lar exer­cise can help you keep your weight down.
* Reduce the effects of estro­gen. If you’re a woman with migraines and estro­gen seems to trig­ger or make your headaches worse, you may want to avoid or reduce the amount of med­ica­tions you take that con­tain estro­gen. These med­ica­tions include birth con­trol pills and hor­mone replace­ment ther­apy. Talk with your doc­tor about the best alter­na­tives or dosages for you.

Tweet This Post

Some days you’re so low on energy that you’re drowsy by lunchtime and in need of a nap by mid after­noon. What’s mak­ing you so tired all the time? Stress, poor eat­ing habits, over­work, even med­ical treat­ments can wear you down and cause fatigue.

Fatigue isn’t the same thing as sleepi­ness, although it’s often accom­pa­nied by a desire to sleep — and a lack of moti­va­tion to do any­thing else.

In some cases, fatigue is a symp­tom of an under­ly­ing med­ical prob­lem that requires med­ical treat­ment. Most of the time, how­ever, fatigue can be traced to one or more of your habits or rou­tines. Chances are you know what’s caus­ing your fatigue. And with a few sim­ple lifestyle changes, it’s likely that you have the power to put the vital­ity back in your life.

Tak­ing a quick inven­tory of the things that might be respon­si­ble for your fatigue is the first step toward relief. Three gen­eral areas cause most cases of fatigue:

• Lifestyle prob­lems. Feel­ings of fatigue often have an obvi­ous cause, such as sleep depri­va­tion, over­work or unhealthy habits.
• Psy­cho­log­i­cal prob­lems. Fatigue is a com­mon symp­tom of men­tal health prob­lems, such as depres­sion and grief, and may be accom­pa­nied by other signs and symp­toms, includ­ing irri­tabil­ity and lack of motivation.
• Med­ical prob­lems. Unre­lent­ing exhaus­tion may be a sign of an under­ly­ing ill­ness, such as a thy­roid dis­or­der, heart dis­ease or diabetes.

Com­mon causes of fatigue include:

Tweet This Post

Stress can come from any sit­u­a­tion or thought that makes you feel frus­trated, angry, or anx­ious. What is stress­ful to one per­son is not nec­es­sar­ily stress­ful to another.

Anx­i­ety is a feel­ing of appre­hen­sion or fear. The source of this uneasi­ness is not always known or rec­og­nized, which can add to the dis­tress you feel.

Alter­na­tive Names

Anx­i­ety; Feel­ing uptight; Stress; Ten­sion; Jit­ters; Apprehension

Con­sid­er­a­tions

Stress is a nor­mal part of life. In small quan­ti­ties, stress is good — it can moti­vate you and help you be more pro­duc­tive. How­ever, too much stress, or a strong response to stress, is harm­ful. It can set you up for gen­eral poor health as well as spe­cific phys­i­cal or psy­cho­log­i­cal ill­nesses like infec­tion, heart dis­ease, or depres­sion. Per­sis­tent and unre­lent­ing stress often leads to anx­i­ety and unhealthy behav­iors like overeat­ing and abuse of alco­hol or drugs.

Emo­tional states like grief or depres­sion and health con­di­tions like an over­ac­tive thy­roid, low blood sugar, or heart attack can also cause stress.

Anx­i­ety is often accom­pa­nied by phys­i­cal symp­toms, including:

• Twitch­ing or trem­bling
• Mus­cle ten­sion, headaches
• Sweat­ing
• Dry mouth, dif­fi­culty swallowing
• Abdom­i­nal pain (may be the only symp­tom of stress, espe­cially in a child)

Some­times other symp­toms accom­pany anxiety:

• Dizzi­ness
• Rapid or irreg­u­lar heart rate
• Rapid breath­ing
• Diar­rhea or fre­quent need to urinate
• Fatigue
• Irri­tabil­ity, includ­ing loss of your temper
• Sleep­ing dif­fi­cul­ties and nightmares
• Decreased con­cen­tra­tion
• Sex­ual problems

Anx­i­ety dis­or­ders are a group of psy­chi­atric con­di­tions that involve exces­sive anx­i­ety. They include gen­er­al­ized anx­i­ety dis­or­der, spe­cific pho­bias, obsessive-compulsive dis­or­der, and social pho­bia.

Com­mon Causes

Cer­tain drugs, both recre­ational and med­i­c­i­nal, can lead to symp­toms of anx­i­ety due to either side effects or with­drawal from the drug. Such drugs include caf­feine, alco­hol, nico­tine, cold reme­dies, decon­ges­tants, bron­chodila­tors for asthma, tri­cyclic anti­de­pres­sants, cocaine, amphet­a­mines, diet pills, ADHD med­ica­tions, and thy­roid medications.

A poor diet – for exam­ple, low lev­els of vit­a­min B12 — can also con­tribute to stress or anx­i­ety. Per­for­mance anx­i­ety is related to spe­cific sit­u­a­tions, like tak­ing a test or mak­ing a pre­sen­ta­tion in pub­lic. Post­trau­matic stress dis­or­der (PTSD) devel­ops after a trau­matic event like war, phys­i­cal or sex­ual assault, or a nat­ural dis­as­ter. Peo­ple with gen­er­al­ized anx­i­ety dis­or­der expe­ri­ence almost con­stant worry or anx­i­ety about many things on more than half of all days for 6 months. Panic dis­or­der or panic attacks involve sud­den and unex­plained fear, rapid breath­ing, and increased heartbeat.

In very rare cases, a tumor of the adrenal gland (pheochro­mo­cy­toma) may be the cause of anx­i­ety. The symp­toms are caused by an over­pro­duc­tion of hor­mones respon­si­ble for the feel­ings of anxiety.

Home Care

The most effec­tive solu­tion is to find and address the source of your stress or anx­i­ety. Unfor­tu­nately, this is not always pos­si­ble. A first step is to take an inven­tory of what you think might be mak­ing you “stress out”:

• What do you worry about most?
• Is some­thing con­stantly on your mind?
• Does any­thing in par­tic­u­lar make you sad or depressed?
• Keep a diary of the expe­ri­ences and thoughts that seem to be related to your anx­i­ety. Are your thoughts adding to your anx­i­ety in these situations?

Then, find some­one you trust (friend, fam­ily mem­ber, neigh­bor, clergy) who will lis­ten to you. Often, just talk­ing to a friend or loved one is all that is needed to relieve anx­i­ety. Most com­mu­ni­ties also have sup­port groups and hot­lines that can help. Social work­ers, psy­chol­o­gists, and other men­tal health pro­fes­sion­als may be needed for ther­apy and medication.

Also, find healthy ways to cope with stress. For example:

• Eat a well-balanced, healthy diet. Don’t overeat.
• Get enough sleep.
• Exer­cise regularly.
• Limit caf­feine and alcohol.
• Don’t use nico­tine, cocaine, or other recre­ational drugs.
• Learn and prac­tice relax­ation tech­niques like guided imagery, pro­gres­sive mus­cle relax­ation, yoga, tai chi, or med­i­ta­tion. Try biofeed­back, using a cer­ti­fied pro­fes­sional to get you started.
• Take breaks from work. Make sure to bal­ance fun activ­i­ties with your respon­si­bil­i­ties. Spend time with peo­ple you enjoy.
• Find self-help books at your local library or bookstore.

Call your health care provider if

Your doc­tor can help you deter­mine if your anx­i­ety would be best eval­u­ated and treated by a men­tal health care professional.

Call 911 if:

• You have crush­ing chest pain, espe­cially with short­ness of breath, dizzi­ness, or sweat­ing. A heart attack can cause feel­ings of anxiety.
• You have thoughts of sui­cide.
• You have dizzi­ness, rapid breath­ing, or rac­ing heart­beat for the first time or it is worse than usual.

Call your health care provider if:

• You are unable to work or func­tion prop­erly at home because of anxiety.
• You do not know the source or cause of your anxiety.
• You have a sud­den feel­ing of panic.
• You have an uncon­trol­lable fear — for exam­ple, of get­ting infected and sick if you are out, or a fear of heights.
• You repeat an action over and over again, like con­stantly wash­ing your hands.
• You have an intol­er­ance to heat, weight loss despite a good appetite, lump or swelling in the front of your neck, or pro­trud­ing eyes. Your thy­roid may be overactive.
• Your anx­i­ety is elicited by the mem­ory of a trau­matic event.
• You have tried self care for sev­eral weeks with­out suc­cess or you feel that your anx­i­ety will not resolve with­out pro­fes­sional help.

Ask your phar­ma­cist or health care provider if any pre­scrip­tion or over-the-counter drugs you are tak­ing can cause anx­i­ety as a side effect. Do not stop tak­ing any pre­scribed med­i­cines with­out your provider’s instructions.

What to expect at your health care provider’s office

Your doc­tor will take a med­ical his­tory and per­form a phys­i­cal exam­i­na­tion, pay­ing close atten­tion to your pulse, blood pres­sure, and res­pi­ra­tory rate.

To help bet­ter under­stand your anx­i­ety, stress, or ten­sion, your doc­tor may ask the following:

• When did your feel­ings of stress, ten­sion, or anx­i­ety begin? Do you attribute the feel­ings to any­thing in par­tic­u­lar like an event in your life or a cir­cum­stance that scares you?
• Do you have phys­i­cal symp­toms along with your feel­ings of anx­i­ety? What are they?
• Does any­thing make your anx­i­ety better?
• Does any­thing make your anx­i­ety worse?
• What med­ica­tions are you taking?

Diag­nos­tic tests may include blood tests (CBC, thy­roid func­tion tests) as well as an elec­tro­car­dio­gram (ECG).

If the anx­i­ety is not accom­pa­nied by any wor­ri­some phys­i­cal signs and symp­toms, a refer­ral to a men­tal health care pro­fes­sional may be rec­om­mended for appro­pri­ate treatment.

Psy­chother­apy such as cognitive-behavioral ther­apy (CBT) has been shown to sig­nif­i­cantly decrease anx­i­ety. In some cases, med­ica­tions such as ben­zo­di­azepines or anti­de­pres­sants may be appropriate.

Ref­er­ences

Muller JE, Kohn L, Stein DJ. Anx­i­ety and med­ical dis­or­ders. Curr Psy­chi­a­try Rep. 2005 Aug;7(4):245–51.

White KS, Far­rell AD. Anx­i­ety and Psy­choso­cial Stress as Pre­dic­tors of Headache and Abdom­i­nal Pain in Urban Early Ado­les­cents. J Pedi­atr Psy­chol. 2005.

Lubit R, Rovine D, Defran­cisci L, Eth S. Impact of trauma on chil­dren. J Psy­chi­atr Pract. 2003; 9(2): 128–138.

Tweet This Post

What Is Pain?

Pain has been defined sci­en­tif­i­cally as an unpleas­ant, emo­tional and sen­sory expe­ri­ence asso­ci­ated with actual or poten­tial tis­sue damage.

Most types of arthri­tis are asso­ci­ated with pain that can be divided into two gen­eral cat­e­gories: acute and chronic. Acute pain is tem­po­rary. Chronic pain ranges from mild to severe, and can last weeks, months, years, or even a lifetime.

Chronic pain is dis­tress­ing because it affects the suf­ferer on many lev­els. It affects them:

• phys­i­cally — with sen­sa­tions of discomfort
• emo­tion­ally — with feel­ings of despon­dency and hopelessness
• psy­cho­log­i­cally — with depres­sion and dis­solv­ing self-esteem
• socially — as they descend into isolation
• occu­pa­tion­ally — as tasks become more dif­fi­cult to perform

It is there­fore imper­a­tive to man­age your pain the best way pos­si­ble to pre­serve qual­ity of life. Despite the fact that chronic pain adversely affects the qual­ity of life of patients, it is often poorly managed.

Tweet This Post

Stress is what you feel when you have to han­dle more than you are used to. When you are stressed, your body responds as though you are in dan­ger. It makes hor­mones that speed up your heart, make you breathe faster, and give you a burst of energy. This is called the fight-or-flight stress response.

Some stress is nor­mal and even use­ful. Stress can help if you need to work hard or react quickly. For exam­ple, it can help you win a race or fin­ish an impor­tant job on time.

But if stress hap­pens too often or lasts too long, it can have bad effects. It can be linked to headaches, an upset stom­ach, back pain, and trou­ble sleep­ing. It can weaken your immune sys­tem, mak­ing it harder to fight off dis­ease. If you already have a health prob­lem, stress may make it worse. It can make you moody, tense, or depressed. Your rela­tion­ships may suf­fer, and you may not do well at work or school.

What can you do about stress?

The good news is that you can learn ways to man­age stress. To get stress under control:

• Find out what is caus­ing stress in your life.
• Look for ways to reduce the amount of stress in your life.
• Learn healthy ways to relieve stress or reduce its harm­ful effects.

How do you mea­sure your stress level?

Some­times it is clear where stress is com­ing from. You can count on stress dur­ing a major life change such as the death of a loved one, get­ting mar­ried, or hav­ing a baby. But other times it may not be so clear why you feel stressed.

It’s impor­tant to fig­ure out what causes stress for you. Every­one feels and responds to stress dif­fer­ently. Keep­ing a stress jour­nal may help. Get a note­book, and write down when some­thing makes you feel stressed. Then write how you reacted and what you did to deal with the stress. Keep­ing a stress jour­nal can help you find out what is caus­ing your stress and how much stress you feel. Then you can take steps to reduce the stress or han­dle it better.

How can you avoid stress?

Stress is a fact of life for most peo­ple. You may not be able to get rid of stress, but you can look for ways to lower it.

You might try some of these ideas:

• Learn bet­ter ways to man­age your time. You may get more done with less stress if you make a sched­ule. Think about which things are most impor­tant, and do those first.
• Find bet­ter ways to cope. Look at how you have been deal­ing with stress. Be hon­est about what works and what does not. Think about other things that might work better.
• Take good care of your­self. Get plenty of rest. Eat well. Don’t smoke. Limit how much alco­hol you drink.
• Try out new ways of think­ing. When you find your­self start­ing to worry, try to stop the thoughts. Work on let­ting go of things you can­not change. Learn to say “no.”
• Speak up. Not being able to talk about your needs and con­cerns cre­ates stress and can make neg­a­tive feel­ings worse. Assertive com­mu­ni­ca­tion can help you express how you feel in a thought­ful, tact­ful way.
• Ask for help. Peo­ple who have a strong net­work of fam­ily and friends man­age stress better.

Some­times stress is just too much to han­dle alone. Talk­ing to a friend or fam­ily mem­ber may help, but you may also want to see a counselor.

How can you relieve stress?

You will feel bet­ter if you can find ways to get stress out of your sys­tem. The best ways to relieve stress are dif­fer­ent for each per­son. Try some of these ideas to see which ones work for you:

• Exer­cise. Reg­u­lar exer­cise is one of the best ways to man­age stress. Walk­ing is a great way to get started.
• Write. It can help to write about the things that are both­er­ing you.
• Let your feel­ings out. Talk, laugh, cry, and express anger when you need to with some­one you trust.
• Do some­thing you enjoy. A hobby can help you relax. Vol­un­teer work or work that helps oth­ers can be a great stress reliever.
• Learn ways to relax your body. This can include breath­ing exer­cises, mus­cle relax­ation exer­cises, mas­sage, aro­mather­apy, yoga, or relax­ing exer­cises like tai chi and qi gong.
• Focus on the present. Try med­i­ta­tion, imagery exer­cises, or self-hypnosis. Lis­ten to relax­ing music. Try to look for the humor in life. Laugh­ter really can be the best medicine.

Tweet This Post

There are a vari­ety of the­o­ries about the causes of stress related back pain. Impor­tantly, the over­rid­ing tenet in all of these the­o­ries is that psy­cho­log­i­cal and emo­tional fac­tors cause some type of phys­i­cal change result­ing in the back pain.

In most the­o­ries of stress related back pain, the pain cycle con­tin­ues and is exac­er­bated as the pain leads to the patient becom­ing timid and anx­ious about daily activ­i­ties. The pain cycle is char­ac­ter­ized by:

• The patient becomes unnec­es­sar­ily lim­ited in many func­tions of daily life, as well as leisure activities
• This decrease in activ­i­ties is due to the patient’s fear of the pain and injury
• This fear may be made worse by admo­ni­tions from doc­tors (and/or fam­ily and friends) to “take it easy” due to some struc­tural diag­no­sis (which may actu­ally have noth­ing to do with the back pain)
• The lim­i­ta­tions in move­ment and activ­ity lead to phys­i­cal de-conditioning and mus­cle weak­en­ing, which in turn leads to more back pain

Of course, this cycle results in more pain, more fear, and more phys­i­cal de-conditioning along with other reac­tions such as social iso­la­tion, depres­sion and anxiety.

Doc­tor Sarno’s theory

In Dr. Sarno’s for­mu­la­tion of TMS, the back pain is not attrib­uted to mechan­i­cal or phys­i­cal fac­tors, but rather due to the patient’s feel­ings, per­son­al­ity, and uncon­scious issues. Key emo­tions include uncon­scious anger and rage. In addi­tion he describes peo­ple who are likely to get TMS as being sim­i­lar to the type A per­son­al­ity, with char­ac­ter­is­tics such as:

• Hav­ing a strong inner drive to succeed
• Hav­ing a great sense of responsibility
• Being self-motivated and disciplined
• Being their own sever­est critics
• Being per­fec­tion­is­tic and compulsive

Dr. Sarno’s the­ory is that these per­son­al­ity char­ac­ter­is­tics inter­act with stress­ful life sit­u­a­tions to cause the back pain. He points out that the source of psy­cho­log­i­cal and emo­tional ten­sion is not always obvious.

Dr. Sarno’s the­ory of TMS describes a mech­a­nism whereby emo­tional ten­sion is pushed out of aware­ness by the mind into the uncon­scious. This uncon­scious ten­sion causes changes in the body’s ner­vous sys­tem. These changes include con­stric­tion in blood ves­sels and reduc­tion of blood flow to the var­i­ous soft tis­sues, includ­ing mus­cles, ten­dons, lig­a­ments, and nerves in the back. This causes a decrease in oxy­gen to the area as well as a buildup of bio­chem­i­cal waste prod­ucts in the mus­cles. In turn, this results in mus­cle ten­sion, spasm and back pain expe­ri­enced by the patient.

The diag­no­sis of stress-related back pain is often made by a thor­ough med­ical his­tory and phys­i­cal exam. Patients must be cau­tious in try­ing to self-diagnose stress related back pain, as there may be a seri­ous med­ical con­di­tion (such as a tumor or infec­tion) caus­ing the pain. A good med­ical exam­i­na­tion can usu­ally rule out the more seri­ous struc­tural causes of back pain in a great major­ity of patients.

For cases of stress-related back pain, the his­tory of onset of back pain is often quite vari­able. The pain may start with an iden­ti­fi­able inci­dent, or it may start insid­i­ously. For instance, it is not uncom­mon for the pain to start with an inci­dent such as a lower back sprain or strain, only to have it con­tinue as the result of emo­tional fac­tors long after the injury has healed.

In many cases there may be MRI find­ings such as a “disc bulge” or “degen­er­a­tive disc dis­ease” when stress-related back pain is the actual cul­prit. In these instances, the MRI find­ings are not clin­i­cally sig­nif­i­cant and ulti­mately deter­mined not to be the cause of the pain.

The over­all char­ac­ter­is­tics of stress-related back pain include symp­toms such as:

• Back pain and/or neck pain
• Dif­fuse mus­cle aches
• Mus­cle ten­der points
• Sleep dis­tur­bance and fatigue
• In many stress-related back pain cases, patients com­plain of the pain “mov­ing around”

In gen­eral, symp­toms of stress related back pain are sim­i­lar to those of fibromyalgia.

Accord­ing to Dr. Sarno, the diag­no­sis of TMS is made not only by rul­ing out other organic causes for the pain but also by pos­i­tively iden­ti­fy­ing the fea­tures of TMS.

Just as there are a vari­ety of the­o­ries about how stress and other emo­tional or psy­cho­log­i­cal fac­tors can cause back pain, there are a vari­ety of treat­ment approaches. The fol­low­ing out­lines two approaches:

Dr. Sarno’s approach to treat­ment of chronic pain

Dr. Sarno’s approach to patients with stress related back pain or TMS, is one of empha­siz­ing the psy­cho­log­i­cal and emo­tional fac­tors as causative and reas­sur­ing the patient as to t he impor­tance of a return to full phys­i­cal functioning.

Dr. Sarno’s approach focuses almost entirely on the repressed emo­tions of anger or rage as the causative fac­tors for the back pain. Once the diag­no­sis of TMS is made it is strongly rec­om­mended to the patient to “think psy­cho­log­i­cal, not phys­i­cal” when the pain occurs. In addi­tion, this treat­ment approach is gen­er­ally lim­ited to accept­ing the stress related back pain for what it is (through a series of edu­ca­tional lec­tures) and/or get­ting psy­chother­apy to address the uncon­scious issues.

This the­ory and approach is very dif­fer­ent than the way most physi­cians man­age patients with these back symptoms.

Multi-disciplinary treat­ment of stress related back pain

The multi-disciplinary (or inte­grated) approach defines and treats stress related back pain in some­what broader terms than Dr. Sarno’s con­cept of TMS. With the multi-disciplinary approach, the health care pro­fes­sion­als do not always see the well-defined per­son­al­ity char­ac­ter­is­tics that Dr. Sarno dis­cusses and do not focus on uncon­scious anger as the focal psy­cho­log­i­cal issue.

The multi-disciplinary approach to treat­ing stress related back pain includes eval­u­a­tion of phys­i­cal, emo­tional, cog­ni­tive and envi­ron­men­tal fac­tors in all types of back pain prob­lems and devel­ops treat­ments for each aspect. Thus, the multi-disciplinary for­mu­la­tion will look at the rel­a­tive con­tri­bu­tion of the fol­low­ing factors:

• Physical—including de-conditioned and weak mus­cles, nerve irri­ta­tion, etc.
• Emotional—including depres­sion, anx­i­ety, anger, etc.
• Cognitive—such as neg­a­tive thoughts, pes­simism, hope­less­ness, etc.
• Environmental—such as loss of job, finan­cial prob­lems, etc

This approach then devel­ops a treat­ment pro­gram based upon how much each fac­tor is thought to be influ­enc­ing the pain. A multi-disciplinary pro­gram may include such treat­ments as:

• Treat­ing the phys­i­cal fac­tors through re-activation ori­ented phys­i­cal ther­apy and/or pain medications
• Treat­ing the phys­i­cal and emo­tional fac­tors through appro­pri­ate med­ica­tions (often includ­ing anti-depressants or mus­cle relaxants)
• Treat­ing the emo­tional and cog­ni­tive fac­tors through psy­cho­log­i­cal pain man­age­ment tech­niques and biofeedback
• Treat­ing the envi­ron­men­tal fac­tors through coun­sel­ing or therapy

The idea of mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary treat­ment of back pain has been around for at least 25 years. It has been shown to be quite suc­cess­ful; although, the key fac­tor in treat­ment out­come is the moti­va­tion of the patient to com­plete a reha­bil­i­ta­tion approach.

Tweet This Post

What is a ten­sion headache?

Most headaches are ten­sion headaches. These headaches tend to hap­pen again and again, espe­cially if you are under stress. They are not usu­ally a sign of some­thing seri­ous. But they can be very painful and hard to live with.

What causes ten­sion headaches?

Doc­tors don’t know for sure what causes ten­sion headaches. Experts once thought that ten­sion or spasms in the mus­cles of your neck, face, and head played a role. Now they think a change in brain chem­i­cals may also be a cause.

What are the symptoms?

Symp­toms of ten­sion headaches include:

• A headache that is con­stant, not throb­bing. You usu­ally feel the pain or pres­sure on both sides of your head.
• Pres­sure that makes you feel like your head is in a vise.
• Aching pain at your tem­ples or the back of your head and neck.

This is dif­fer­ent than migraine headaches, which usu­ally cause throb­bing pain and start on one side of your head.

Ten­sion headaches tend to come back, espe­cially when you are under stress. They can last from 30 min­utes to sev­eral days.

Usu­ally, pain from a ten­sion headache is not severe and does not get in the way of your work or social life. But for some peo­ple the pain is very bad or lasts a long time. You have chronic ten­sion headaches if they occur at least 15 days a month.

How are ten­sion headaches diagnosed?

A doc­tor can usu­ally diag­nose ten­sion headaches by ask­ing you ques­tions about your health and lifestyle and by exam­in­ing you.

How are they treated?

Most peo­ple can treat their ten­sion headaches with pain reliev­ers that you buy with­out a pre­scrip­tion, like aceta­minophen (such as Tylenol) or aspirin.

But if you take these pain reliev­ers more than 3 times a week, you may get rebound headaches. Rebound headaches are dif­fer­ent from ten­sion headaches. They usu­ally start after pain med­i­cine has worn off, which leads you to take another dose. Even­tu­ally you get a headache when­ever you stop tak­ing the medicine.

Some peo­ple have chronic ten­sion headaches. This means they often get headaches. Doc­tors may pre­scribe stronger pain med­i­cine for these people.

Can ten­sion headaches be prevented?

Even with treat­ment, most peo­ple still have some headaches. But with treat­ment, you will prob­a­bly have them less often. And when you do get them, they prob­a­bly won’t be as bad.

Home treat­ment may help you avoid headaches. Learn how to han­dle stress. Make sure you sleep, exer­cise, and eat on a reg­u­lar sched­ule. Check your pos­ture. Don’t strain your eyes when you use your com­puter. Get treat­ment for depres­sion or anxiety.

Nature Cre­ation is offer­ing a relax­ation kits (laven­der eye cover, mint pil­low, neck pil­low & shoul­der wrap), which is sim­ple to use as daily treat­ments with­out the bad effects of chem­i­cal sub­stances in your body.  You just have to heat the prod­ucts in the microwave, and apply them as treat­ments.  Within min­utes, you will scent the nat­ural aro­matic herbs of the prod­ucts, plus the relax­ation effects to your stress mus­cles around the treated area.  Def­i­nitely,  you will feel the com­fort and even­tu­ally relieve the stress.

Also, try keep­ing a headache diary. Every time you get a headache, write down the date, the hour, and what you were doing and feel­ing before your headache started. This may help you and your doc­tor find out what is caus­ing your headaches so you can get the right treatment.

Tweet This Post