Eat A Healthy Diet If You’re Living With Chronic Pain
A well-balanced diet is important in many ways — aiding your digestive process, reducing heart disease risk, keeping weight under control, and improving blood sugar levels. To eat a low-fat, low-sodium diet, choose from these: fresh fruits and vegetables cooked dried beans and peas whole-grain breads and cereals low-fat cheese, milk, and yogurt and lean meats.
Theres Tired And Then Theres Fatigue Lets Not Mistake The Two
Fatigue is one of the most challenging symptoms of chronic illness to cope with. This is something we hear from CreakyJoints members over and over and over again.My worst problem is fatigue. I need all my energy just to get through my eight hours of work and when thats over I have none left to do anything else, Elena K. told us recently on Facebook.Fatigue is robbing me of the energy I wanted to use on all the projects I had planned for retirement, shared Beverly K. on Facebook.
The Gift Of Showing You Care
Last, but not least, if you dont know enough about your EDSers personal struggles, gift certificates and gift cards are always welcome to this exotic creature. Some amazing and much-appreciated ideas for any zebra can include:
- Gift Certificates Massage , Acupuncture treatments, Reiki or Floating, foot massages or pedicures
- Gift Cards Amazon or Etsy, their fav grocery store, meal prep and/or food delivery services , cleaning services and/or driving services
Broke? Youre in luck! However wonderful the gifts above can be at holiday time, truly, the best things in life are free. Your love and support are what your lovely warrior genuinely wants and needs.
What they REALLY want from you is your ears to listen and hear them, while not trying to fix the problem. They want acceptance for you to love them just the way they are, even if they feel broken. They need the gift of understanding to help them better cope with the challenges of chronic illness, so offer to research or invest in an app or a book that discusses their diagnosis or its symptoms. Mostly, they want your support, permission to go lie down when they need to, or help to ensure things stay on track while they rest. But above all else, give them love. Unconditional love can mean touching them or hugging them, gently massaging aching limbs or telling them how much you care.
Love, Peace and Kindness.
The Chronic Illness Tracker and funny t-shirts can be found at
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How The Team Works
We are an outpatient service. Once a referral is accepted, we will send you some questionnaires to complete and return. This information helps us decide who you need to see in our team. We will then send you a first appointment. If you are seeing more than one member of the team this appointment may last two or three hours.
Please note that we have a waiting list for appointments. However, as a team we understand that it is distressing for people with pain or fatigue to wait for appointments and we do our best to keep our waiting lists as short as possible.
If you are unable to keep an appointment please give us at least 48 hours notice so that we can offer it to somebody else.
In Loss There Is Gain
Though my losses to chronic pain over the last decade have been steep, I have also gained much through the experience. I gained a new respect for myself, knowing I am in control of the pain instead of the pain controlling me. I gained new friendships. And I am gaining new purpose in helping others manage their own pain. I have set a new course for my journey.
Tom Bowen oversees the Facebook group Chronic Pain Champions No Whining Allowed. He can be reached at .
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Learn Biofeedback To Decrease Migraine And Tension Headache Pain
Through biofeedback, it’s possible to consciously control various body functions. It may sound like science fiction, but there is good evidence that biofeedback works — and it’s not hard to master.
Here’s how it works: You wear sensors that let you “hear” or “see” certain bodily functions like pulse, digestion, body temperature, and muscle tension. The squiggly lines and/or beeps on the attached monitors reflect what’s going on inside your body. Then you learn to control those squiggles and beeps. After a few sessions, your mind has trained your biological system to learn the skills.
How To Cope With Chronic Pain And Fatigue
Living with chronic pain and fatigue can sometimes feel overwhelming. We see how this combination affects our clients when they begin their journey with us. Stressed, exhausted, sore. Yet, with the right approaches life can improve. Pain reduction, even elimination, is possible. Your zest for life can return. Kindness and compassion mixed with evidence-based care and support provide the best way forward.The approaches we encourage include
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Caring For Someone With Me/cfs
Having a supportive community of family, friends, school, work, employers and health workers, who understand the potential seriousness of ME/CFS, can also help improve the quality of life of people living with ME/CFS.
Everyone involved in supporting someone with ME/CFS needs to understand Post Exertional Malaise, which is an abnormal, biological response to exercise or activity. This means the patient will not be able to do all of the activities they used to be able to do, and will benefit from practical and emotional support. People with ME/CFS will each have different needs and preferences, so it is important to talk with them about how best to provide support. This may include help with daily routines, family life, accessing healthcare and other personal priorities.
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Ask About Timing Around Morning Vs Evening
Im on prednisone for my psoriatic arthritis and I found that it was making it really hard to sleep at night, says Melanie S., 21, of Phoenix, Arizona. Then my pharmacist told me its kind of a stimulant so I should take it in the morning. Now she takes it with breakfast and says this has helped a lot with her exhaustion.
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Allergies Hay Fever And Fatigue
Symptoms: Fatigue, headache, itchiness, nasal congestion, and drainage
Allergic rhinitis is a common cause of chronic fatigue. But allergic rhinitis often can be easily treated and self-managed. To make a diagnosis, your doctor will assess your symptoms. The doctor will also find out, through a detailed history or testing, whether your allergies are triggered by pollens, insects , animal dander, molds and mildew, weather changes, or something else.
One way to reduce symptoms of allergic rhinitis including fatigue is to take steps to avoid the offending allergen. In addition, proper medication can help with symptoms. Drugs that might help include:
- Leukotriene modifiers
- Mast cell stabilizers
Allergy shotsimmunotherapy may help in severe cases. This treatment involves weekly shots of increasingly higher solutions of the offending allergens. Allergy shots take time to be effective and are usually administered over a period of 3 to 5 years.
What Are The Symptoms Of Chronic Pain
Everyone feels pain differently and your experience of chronic pain may be different. It is usually described as pain that does not go away as expected after an illness or injury. The pain can be shooting, burning, aching or electrical in nature and can lead to discomfort, soreness, tightness or stiffness. Having ongoing pain can be distressing and often leads to other symptoms, such as:
- fatigue, which can cause impatience and a lack of motivation
- trouble sleeping, often because the pain keeps you awake during the night
- not being active and an increased need to rest
- a weakened immune system, leading to frequent infections or illness
- low mood and feelings such as hopelessness, fear, anxiety and stress
- disability, which may include not being able to go to work or school or perform other daily activities.
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Talk To Your Doctor About Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
If you suspect you may have ME/CFS, consult your doctor. You might keep an activity log or health journal to note changes in your wellbeing and help your physician understand your situation. With the aid of your physician, you can eliminate other possible causes of your fatigue. Then, together you can develop a plan for treatment and relief of symptoms.
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Join A Support Group Meet Others Living With Chronic Pain
When youâre with people who have chronic pain and understand what youâre going through, you feel less alone. You also benefit from their wisdom in coping with the pain.
Also, consider meeting with a mental health professional. Anyone can develop depression if they are living with chronic pain. Getting counseling can help you learn to cope better and help you avoid negative thoughts that make pain worse â so you have a healthier attitude. Asking for help is a sign of strength, not weakness.
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Healing Psychological And Emotional Factors
Why did this person get this illness at this time? Alternative Medicine Practitioners ask such questions because they realize that illness is more than a matter of imbalanced physiology. There are always psychological and emotional aspects to every health problem and unless these are thoroughly addressed, no cure will ever be complete and lasting.
Lifestyle choices, including how one thinks and acts, can contribute to chronic fatigue. For example, a lifestyle of high-paced overachievement or workaholism characterizes the lives of many CFS sufferers prior to becoming sick. For some people dealing with unremitting fatigue is the only way they will ever take the time to focus on their internal world. While not all CFS patients have the same psychological make-up, all of them do have psychological issues that play a contributing role in their illness, and these mental and emotional factors constantly interact with their physiological condition. For true and complete healing to be successful the CFS patient must learn the lesson of the disease. They must not to repeat the emotional, psychological and lifestyle patterns that contributed to their illness. Working with a trained professional to help deal with some of the emotional baggage is one of the keys to healing.
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What Are The Risk Factors For Chronic Pain
Since many conditions or injuries can cause chronic pain, there are several risk factors for experiencing it. Some risk factors include:
- Your genetics: Some chronic pain causes, like migraines, run in the family .
- Having obesity: Having obesity can worsen certain health conditions that cause pain, such as arthritis since theres extra pressure on your joints.
- Your age: Older people are more likely to experience chronic pain from arthritis and neuropathy.
- Having a previous injury: If youve had a traumatic injury, youre more likely to develop chronic pain in the future.
- Having a labor-intensive job: If you have a physically strenuous job, youre at greater risk for developing chronic pain.
- Experiencing stress: Studies have shown that chronic pain is connected to both frequent stress and post-traumatic stress disorder.
- Smoking: If you smoke, youre at greater risk for developing medical conditions that lead to a need for chronic pain treatment.
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Biological Link Between Pain And Fatigue Discovered
- Date:
- University of Iowa
- Summary:
- A recent study reveals a biological link between pain and fatigue and may help explain why more women than men are diagnosed with chronic pain and fatigue conditions like fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome.
A recent University of Iowa study reveals a biological link between pain and fatigue and may help explain why more women than men are diagnosed with chronic pain and fatigue conditions like fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome.
Working with mice, the researchers, led by Kathleen Sluka, Ph.D., professor in the Graduate Program in Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Science in the UI Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine, found that a protein involved in muscle pain works in conjunction with the male hormone testosterone to protect against muscle fatigue.
Chronic pain and fatigue often occur together as many as three in four people with chronic, widespread musculoskeletal pain report having fatigue and as many as 94 percent of people with chronic fatigue syndromes report muscle pain. Women make up the majority of patients with these conditions.
To probe the link between pain and fatigue, and the influence of sex, the UI team compared exercise-induced muscle fatigue in male and female mice with and without ASIC3 an acid-activated ion channel protein that the team has shown to be involved in musculoskeletal pain.
How Chronic Pain Leads To Fatigue
Research has indicated that individuals with intense pain or pain that lasts a long duration are more likely to experience fatigue. So, why do these two tend to go hand-in-hand?
Individuals with chronic pain frequently struggle to get a deep and restorative sleep. Thus, as tired as you might feel, your pain might cause you to toss and turn throughout the night, as well as wake up several times a night.
Experts further state that less sleep can actually decrease your pain threshold and tolerance, which means that a lack of sleep can often lead to more intense pain.
Without sleep, the body is less capable of healing and repairing itself. This further prolongs pain and also leads to longer recovery times from injuries.
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Consider Injections Instead Of Pills
Sometimes the same drug can affect you in different ways depending on the method in which it is administered, Dr. Cohen says. Take methotrexate, for instance with pills you may have to use more medication to get the therapeutic dose because it has to pass through the entire gastrointestinal tract, she explains. Using an intramuscular injection often allows us to use less medication as it goes directly to your bloodstream. This may help lessen side effects such as fatigue for some patients. Read more common questions about methotrexate.
Take Breaks From Your Phone
Technology can be a catch-22 when it comes to resting. Playing Candy Crush, watching Netflix, or surfing the web may feel like a good way to wind down but its not real rest and may even make you more anxious. In addition, the blue light emitted from phone, tablet, and laptop screens can also mess up your sleep. Dont use screens within an hour of bedtime, Dr. Cohen cautions.
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How To Manage Chronic Fatigue
While this is good news, CFS still can be quite difficult to diagnose because many of its symptoms look similar to other conditions.
“There are no definitive, approved medications available to cure CFS, and no curative therapies that have been established,” Dr. Gangani says. “Management is supportive and focused on treating symptoms and associated comorbid conditions, including sleep disorders, depression and anxiety.”
If you have CFS, there are many things you can do to ease your symptoms. Here, experts reveal their tried-and-true coping methods.
Chronic Pain And Fatigue: How To Cope With The Symptoms
Do you struggle with chronic pain? Has exhaustion sapped your mojo? Have you wondered if these two problems are interlinked? Chronic pain and fatigue often go hand in hand. But before we dive into why, and give you evidence-based advice on how to cope, lets look at the definitions to ensure were on the same page.Chronic pain is pain that, Lasts beyond normal healing time after injury or illness generally 3 to 6 months. It is pain that just keeps going. While the definition is simple, the process is not. There are a range of complex physical and psychological factors involved. Long-term fatigue is also, by definition, chronic in nature it, too, just keeps going. Research published in the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management noted that:Chronic fatigue has been described as a sustained sense of whole-body exhaustion that is disproportionate to the level of physical exertion and is not relieved by rest.This kind of depletion has profound consequences. Tiredness can strike without physical exertion and is not remedied by a good sleep. This can lead to a poorer quality of life.A self-perpetuating cycle can also brew: pain worsens fatigue, fatigue leads to further pain, ad nauseam.
This raises an important question
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Who Gets Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Chronic fatigue syndrome can affect people of all ethnicities and ages, but is most common in people in their forties or fifties. Its very rare in kids. A few teens do get CFS, and it affects more girls than guys.
Sometimes different people in the same family get CFS. This may be because the tendency to develop CFS is genetic.
Reasons Why Chronic Pain Makes You Tired
Fatigue can be linked to many issues, from stress and anxiety to poor diet. It may also be connected to pain, as I discuss further in this blog. Here, I go over five ways chronic pain can make you tired and give some advice for managing symptoms of fatigue that can make daily life more challenging.
Louise Baillie
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What Fatigue Really Feels Like
Think about these scenarios:
- You had the flu and it knocked you out for a short period. You were too sick to get much done, and definitely too sick to work or play with your children.
- You had too much fun and a few too many drinks one night, then couldnt get off the couch the entire next day. You felt so weak and tired that you had to call in sick with some made-up illness.
Chronic fatigue resembles these situations, but its worse because it doesnt get better with medicine, rest, caffeine, a greasy breakfast, or time.
Indeed, Dr. Barlett told me that Im not alone in these descriptions.
People with RA will often describe their fatigue as a feeling of being completely wiped out or utterly exhausted or how I feel when Im coming down with the flu, she says. This type of fatigue does not seem to improve with sleep or rest, and very often is a sign that disease activity is increasing. Indeed, in work we did across many countries, almost everyone we spoke with mentioned extreme fatigue as the first and most reliable signs that they are about to have a serious disease flare.
Our fatigue is always there, nagging away.
