Does Tiny Zaps of Electricity Block Nerves and Ease Back Pain?

Various treatments for back pain have been developed over the years; some are effective, but most give minimal relief if they give relief at all. One treatment modality being bandied about is electrotherapy – the use of electricity along nerve pathways to block pain. There are two methods of electrotherapy – TENS and electro-acupuncture.

What is TENS?

TENS is the acronym for transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation; the therapy sends electrical pulses along nerve pathways to stimulate the nerves and block pain. The unit is connected to the skin via electrodes, and the TENS unit sends impulses at a specified width, frequency, and intensity. TENS pulses can be high frequency and low intensity (no motor contractions) or low frequency and high intensity (causes motor contractions). 

Uses for TENS

TENS has been used effectively in physical therapy, to relieve muscle spasms. At low frequency and high intensity, the TENS unit contracts muscles; for patients with severe spasms, the therapy gently works the muscle until the spasm releases. 

TENS has also been used as a pain therapy. When the pain is chronic, and not involving the muscles, TENS is used in the high frequency – low intensity mode, to stimulate nerves. The stimulation blocks pain receptors, easing the pain felt in the treated area.

Is TENS Effective?

Whether or not TENS is effective depends on whom you ask; in clinical settings, patients report significant pain relief from TENS therapy, but there are no research studies to back up the empirical evidence. Research studies should be taken with a grain of salt, as studies can prove any point a researcher wishes to make. How the study was conducted, who paid for it, and who actually did the research all come into play, as some studies are done with the idea of discrediting therapies the mainstream medical community does not approve of instead of objectively evaluating the treatment on its own merit. Empirical evidence suggests TENS is effective at joint pain relief, and until a well-conducted study is made that disproves it, the empirical evidence is enough to support the therapy.

What is Electro-acupuncture?

Electro-acupuncture is a form of traditional acupuncture done with needle and an electrical current, as opposed to just using needles.

Traditional acupuncture is based on the concept of chi, or energy, flowing through the body. When the body is healthy, chi flows along meridians without interruption. When a state of disease occurs, the meridians involved in the disease become blocked, and the energy flow is reduced or stopped.

Acupuncture is used to release the blockage, allowing energy to flow freely. The therapy involves inserting needles into nerves along the blocked meridian, stimulating the nerves and freeing the blockage. Sometimes it is necessary to manipulate the needles to effect the release, and this is where electro-acupuncture comes into play. 

The acupuncturist inserts needles along the affected meridians just the same as an acupuncturist does for traditional acupuncture. The needles are then connected, via small clips, to a device producing an electrical current. This device, like a TENS unit, controls the frequency intensity, and width of the electrical impulse. The current provides continuous stimulation to the nerves in the meridian without the necessity of hand manipulation of the needles by the acupuncturist. Electro-acupuncture can provide continuous stimulation of the meridian for up to 30 minutes at a time. Most people cannot sustain a fine-motor activity for this length of time, so electro-acupuncture fills the void caused by fatigue.

Is Electro-acupuncture Effective on Back Pain?

Whether electro-acupuncture is effective on pain, back or otherwise, depends again on whom you ask. Patients find electro-acupuncture effective on pain, just as they do TENS, but again, there is no hard research to satisfy the Western skeptic. This is true for traditional acupuncture as well, although most mainstream practitioners have come to accept traditional acupuncture as effective.

When chronic back pain is muscular in nature, both TENS and electro-acupuncture are effective in treating it. If the pain is neurological, both treatments may be effective, but success is not guaranteed. When used in conjunction with hot and cold therapies, and topical analgesics, electrotherapy can be efficacious on chronic pain. When the alternative is mainstream analgesics, electrotherapy is certainly worth trying, as mainstream analgesics come with a host of nasty side effects, and are to be avoided if at all possible.
TENS and electro-acupuncture are safe, effective treatments when performed by knowledgeable practitioners; do your homework, and find certified therapists.

No therapy is effective on every patient, so there are no guarantees electrotherapy will work for you. Then again, there are no guarantees it won’t work, either, so give it a try. You’ve got nothing to lose but your pain.

References:

https://www.consumerhealthdigest.com/health-news/tens-pain-management-introduces-new-remedy67890.html

https://www.glozine.com/lifestyle/health

Music Therapy For Arthritis Pain

Music therapy is considered the best pain reliever for arthritis pain and depression. It is very effective and efficient with those people with inflammatory arthritis pains because music soothes. Music therapists say that listening to music relaxes a person hence help in reducing pains and depression to the patients by improving the confidence, morale and physical functional levels of a person with arthritis.

Music eases arthritis pains and symptoms

It has been proven that classical music is the best medicine to soothe the irritating and itching joints and limbs which in the long run reduce the levels of stress and anxiety. This is what music therapist and medical researchers concur. Slow tempo music enhances the flow of blood especially to the painful areas of the body. In the school of nursing at Florida Atlantic University College found out that because the music distracts the patients especially those with arthritis, it decreases the levels of pain. In addition, the heartbeat muscles move together with the music beats and does breathe hence being the best reliever. The music helps reduce or slow the fast beat heart and maintains it at approximately between 69 and 70 beats per minute. Joanne Loewy says that classic music has a lot of power especially in promoting relaxation and breathing.

However, not all music genres soothe the heart depending on how fast or slow it is. Faster music composition can stimulate the heart rate and nervous systems. Listening to such kind of music can increase the rate of heartbeat hence causing more pain, stress and depression to the arthritis patients. Music therapist believed that classical music can sooth all common types of arthritis.
Pain Barriers

Though music is one of the pain relievers, there is little that has been done especially on how to contain chronic pains. This is one of the areas of importance because most researchers have concentrated on helping those with mild or moderate pain only. This is a barrier in helping those patients with arthritis with chronic and severe pains. In England, people with severe pains have risen to 14 million which is more than 1 third of the country’s total population.

To reduce the burden and stress that health or medical professionals, the government advises those with pains to manage their conditions as early as possible. This is self-management of pains before it reaches uncontrollable stages. It advocates for doing relaxing exercise, regular stretching, and taking medications as recommended by the doctors. Music being inexpensive is very attractive and can help people not to use many drugs that cause more pain and other related side effects. People with arthritis do not affect them only but also their families, relatives, and loved ones are affected in one way or another.

Breathing and heart rate

When listening to any form or type of music, it is recommended to pay attention to the heart and breathing rate. The slower the breathing and heart rate, it means the music is soothing which leads to stress and depression reduction. This is on the positive and encouraging side to the patient and medics. On the other flip side, if the heart rate is faster or racing when listening to a certain selection of music then it is helping the patient but worsening the situation. If you find the music that soothes your heart well then save the music and listen to it more often.

Music compilation

Every patient with arthritis should prepare or compile their own music so that when the pain becomes severe they can easily find one and listen in order to contain the pain. The classical music is the type that most medics and those with arthritis recommend but some people prefer other types. The music compilation should be relaxing and soothing the heart which is slow and creates ones happiness.

Jazz or new genres

Even though classical moving has been extensively accepted by many researchers, Loewy is of the opinion that trying or giving a chance to jazz or new age is not a bad idea. This genre of music can be effective and efficient if you choose the best tunes. In January 2015 at Cleveland Clinic’s Euclid Hospital, Shirley Livingston 73 year old woman was soothed and relieved of her pain when a music therapist came to the ward. The music therapist played a flute for about 30 minutes each day for three weeks and the pains she had reduced drastically.

Conclusion
 
For many years, music therapists have been upping their game on research on how to relieve pain in patients with arthritis.  Arthritis patients have confirmed that music is the best medicine to relieve pain. Other new genres of music such as jazz can also be tried if it can serve the same purpose as classical music.

References:

https://www.glozine.com/lifestyle/health/natural-joint-pain-relief-supplements.html

http://community.healthywomen.org/profiles/blogs/during-winter-joint-pain-gets-bad-to-worse-why

What You Need to Know about Your Joint Pain Supplement?

 The number of people who suffer from joint pain is rising, as well as the number of joint pain supplements in the market today. Finding the right cure might prove difficult as you are presented with way too many options. But, it is only through finding the right cure that you can enjoy relief from the debilitating joint pains. The Arthritis Foundation strongly recommends assessing and examining every joint supplement before making the decision to purchase something.

In order to make an informed choice about your future supplements, here are some frequently asked questions that you should consider.
FAQ in Choosing the Right Joint Supplement

The first question you should address would be what the ingredients are and their purposes?

Knowing what ingredients contained in your joint pain supplement will help you decide if the supplement will actually work for you.
The most powerful ingredients to address joint pain are:
 
Glucosamine – is a naturally-produced amino acid by the body. Researches show that ample amount of glucosamine in your joint supplement will help repair damaged cartilages and alleviate joint pains.

Chondroitin – just like glucosamine, chondroitin is also produced by our body. Chondroitin also helps in strengthening the cartilages as well as prohibit the formation of enzymes responsible in cartilage damage.

MSM - or Methylsulfonylmethane is a clinically tested ingredient which help improve the flexibility of the ligaments as well improve health of the ligaments.
   
Potent Herbs and substances – a combination of potent herbs and substances proven to improve joint health will also help address joint pains. Popular herbs and substances against joint pains include Boswellia, cat’s claw, bromelain, trypsin and hyaluronic acid.

Two of the best joint pain supplements where you can find the above ingredients are contained in each capsule of Flexoplex and Flexcerin. Flexoplex and Flexcerin both contain a unique blend of powerful ingredients making their formulas revolutionary and effective.

The next question you should consider is: What are the red flags for subpar joint supplements?

It is important to know what these red flags are in order to eliminate these supplements from your list.

The red flags include:
    Side effects.
    No money back guarantee.
    No trial packages.
    Full list of ingredients is not provided.

Some of the joint supplements such as Topricin, Penetrex, I-flex and Instaflex did not list all their ingredients. Undeclared ingredients may produce harmful side effects we may not know of until the product is used for some time.

The last question would be: how much does it cost

It is important to find a supplement that will give you your money’s worth. Cheap supplements do not mean they are not effective and vice-versa. The most important thing about a supplement’s price is that its efficiency makes it worth purchasing.

Bottom line

Once the above concerns are addressed, you are most likely be making a wise decision about the product you are purchasing. Looking at products such as Flexoplex and Flexcerin will give you a good idea of what a good joint pain supplement is supposed to be. Educating yourself about a joint supplement’s ingredients, possible side effects as well proper diet and regular exercise will help you achieve not just healthy joints but a healthy lifestyle as well.

Arthritis Knee Pain Exercise - Treat Arthritic Knees with Movement

Arthritis knee pain exercise is one of the best things you can do to eliminate knee pain. It may sound like a cruel joke to say that you should do arthritis knee pain exercise but movement is one of the best ways to stop the pain of arthritis. Arthritis knee pain exercise can also help keep your arthritis from getting even worse. There are many kinds of arthritis knee pain exercise that you can choose to do. For some you may need the advice of a physical therapist or doctor but others you can easily do yourself at the gym or in the comfort of your home.

Walking is one of the best ways to do arthritis knee pain exercise. You can easily walk just about anywhere. This does not necessarily mean to take the stairs. Take a short walk around your neighborhood. Walking helps to increase your strength and endurance, which can help you avoid pain from arthritis. Avoid doing running or jobbing as an arthritis knee pain exercise. This is because it puts more stress on your joints and can lead to more damage. Riding a bike would be a better way to do your arthritis knee pain exercise because you can get plenty of movement without any wear and tear on your joints.

Another excellent arthritis knee pain exercise is swimming. Swimming allows you to take your weight off of your knees, which will keep any damage from occurring. If you are trying to lose weight, swimming can help protect your knees. Every extra pound of weight puts forty pounds of pressure on the knees. So an arthritis knee pain exercise like swimming can eliminate that added pressure while exercising and at the same time help you to take off the excess pounds. Water aerobics are also good arthritis knee pain exercise. Again, you can have a good workout, loosen your joints, and avoid any further damage.

Stretching can be the best arthritis knee pain exercise you can do. While it may sound like stretching would actually cause more pain, stretching helps encourage lubrication of the joints. This means that exercises that are simple stretches or even yoga can be excellent forms of arthritis knee pain exercise. You can join a class for yoga if you want to. If you prefer to do your arthritis knee pain exercise in private you can easily pick up a DVD and do yoga right in your living room. Stretching can help you limber up your joints where your range of motion greatly improves. And on the other hand there are various joint pain products are available on the market today, in which the most popular product are Vital 3, Osteojuv, Arthri D etc.

Neck Pain Treatments For A Healthy Life

Most people have experienced some level of acute pain in the lower back, shoulders, or neck. While treatments can tend to focus on specific parts or areas of the body for alleviation of this pain, it’s important to remember that all parts of the body are connected, closely related, and all work together to maintain health and balance. The neck and the spine for example, can often be seen as two separate regions, but the neck is essentially an extension of the spine, and therefore part of the greater whole. Spine and neck pain are therefore technically the same, depending on where the pain occurs. Neck pain treatment, therefore, can be considered part of a more comprehensive health management strategy for the whole spine, and it all starts with having your head on straight.

The Head:
Having the head balanced and aligned correctly is crucial for the whole body to function well. The spine is supported by muscles around it, and if those muscles become weak or get injured, the spine slowly starts to fall out of place. This often causes spine and neck pain as the muscles over-strain or even tear as they try to support the spine.

The Neck:
The neck supports the head as well due to which muscles in the neck can become tired if the position of the head is unnatural. Posture correction workouts and simple stretches can serve as effective neck pain treatment and reduce back pain discomfort and neck pain in these cases. A core workout can also help strengthen the stomach muscles, lower back muscles, groin, and legs, since these muscles support the spine. If these muscles weaken, the spine is likely to misalign, causing pain in the spine and the neck.

The Spine:
A misaligned spine can also give way to muscle imbalance. When the body is in optimal alignment, it takes minimal energy and work to stay upright and pain free.  But if the body becomes twisted and torqued out balance, muscles must fight and struggle just to try and maintain alignment. Often times the muscles that are working the hardest to maintain balance will be the muscles that experience the most pain, either by painful knots, always feeling tight, or always seem to hurt. Misalignment or imbalance in upper most region of your spine could lead to one or many of a myriad of symptoms and conditions including headaches, dizziness, neck and lower back pains, distorted body posture, muscles tenderness, and decreased strength and flexibility. Because pain and discomfort often act as the body’s first warning signal that something may be out of place, seeking effective neck pain treatment at the start will help to stop more serious issues from developing in the future.

Other issues, including onset of a head tilt to the side, slight forward head posture, a slouch, or any lateral curves to the spine can also be indications of misalignment. If not addressed, these problems could eventually lead to systematic breakdown of whole bone structure of the entire spine resulting in malfunction, disc herniation, degeneration, arthritis, spurs, or worse.

Every organ in the body takes commands and receives signals from your brain and all of these messages are relayed through the spinal cord, which is protected by the spine.  If organs such as the stomach, pancreas, lungs, or the heart do not receive the right information, it can result in a myriad of problems, including heart burn and indigestion, to even more serious issues like diabetes, heart palpitations or arrhythmias. It is critical to maintain a healthy nervous system for the body to function properly. Remembering that it’s all connected, effective neck pain treatment can be considered a great way to also help maintain a healthy nervous system.

Generally, keeping active and maintaining good health is the best way to prevent problems from starting. Professional neck pain treatment should be considered if pain becomes chronic or gradually worsens, as these can lead to many more serious issues, including anxiety and depression. Developing a comprehensive and effective treatment plan to ensure all the right connections stay in place to live happy and pain free.

The Easiest Ways to Prevent Joint Pains and Related Disorders

One out of four people are experiencing joint pains and related disorders today. I find this number rather disturbing because these diseases are becoming more common and even the younger folks can be affected. Instead of rushing to a surgery or popping painkillers, why not try these easy tips to help you prevent joint pains? 

Osteoarthritis is a degenerative disorder wherein the joints and ligaments naturally loses their strength and lubrication. The best way to prevent this is through avoiding obesity and maintaining a good body weight. For older folks, strengthening the hips and knees through exercise is also good for joint health.

If you are told to drink moderately, you should or else you are becoming more exposed to gout. Gout is the condition when uric acids accumulate in the body, leading to joint pain and inflammation. The main culprit for this is heavy drinking. Beers and other liquors are high in purine, a substance which stimulate the production of uric acid. Other foods such as red meat, asparagus, sardines also have high contents of purine so its best to stay away from too.

Rheumatoid arthritis attacks are also painful and debilitating. The best way to avoid this disease is by increasing your vegetable and fruit intake to a total of seven servings per day. With the great complications these joint-related disorders can bring to our lives, the old adage is right after all: prevention is better than cure.

Bone Health - More Than Exercise And Consuming Calcium

We are seeing a huge rise in osteoporosis. Osteoporosis is said to affect at least half the population of women and two thirds the population of men. That's a huge number. The common advice we see when it comes to osteoporosis is consume more calcium and get more exercise. This is really quite poor advice because it doesn't take into account at all how the body works and individual needs. 

If you have osteoporosis or you are moving towards osteoporosis your body is breaking down bone for a reason. It's breaking down bone because it's trying to get calcium into your body. We tell people that they need to exercise more and this creates strong bones but the problem with this is that if you exercise you increase lactic acid. Lactic acid is a toxic to the body and this causes you to increase estrogen levels. Estrogen activates prolactin and prolactin breaks down bone. This means that if you doing the wrong type of exercise or over exercising your actually making your problem worse.

I know many people who exercise every day and have osteoporosis. I'm not saying exercise is bad you need to do the right of exercise for your needs at that particular time frame. You may just need to walk for a period of time and then slowly work your way up to light resistance training. The way you can tell if exercise is benefiting you or harming you is by taking your temperature 10 to 20 minutes after you exercise. We have all seen infomercials for calcium supplements and many people take these supplements yet people a lot of times can't even disgust and properly assimilate the calcium in the supplements. This is due not only to the poor quality of the calcium supplements but also due to people having a broken metabolism. When people have a broken metabolic rate they don't secrete adequate amounts of stomach acid to even digestive the calcium their taking. they're also much better sources of calcium that are a lot cheaper. Eggshells are a much easier source of calcium for the body to digest and are extremely inexpensive.

What you do is you take a eggshell and you cook it for 10 to 20 minutes. Then you take a coffee grinder and you grind it and you put in your coffee or tea. This is a excellent calcium supplement and costs you very little. The best source of calcium is milk. Things you can do to stimulate your metabolism and get your production of hydrochloric acid going light therapy, CO2 therapy through the use of bag breathing. You want to make sure to use a paper bag and you also want to make sure to not breath into the paper bag for more than a minute at a time. You want to be eating the right frequencies, ratios and timing of meals. All of these things are going to help you increase your metabolism which is going to help you digest the calcium your taking in and lower estrogen levels. Getting your metabolism going is going to help treat and reverse osteoporosis. You can see how there's more to osteoporosis then taking more calcium and exercising more.

I don't think the advice that were being given is working because were seeing the numbers of osteoporosis increase not decrease. The scary thing is that people younger and younger are getting osteoporosis. Some other things you can do to increase metabolism is meditation. Meditation can help increase CO2 levels which will lower prolactin. You can also take time to yourself throughout the day to do the things you love. You want to be going to bed early because you physical repair starts at around 10 PM. If you want to improve your symptoms of osteoporosis or prevent it from happening then you really have to live a healthy lifestyle. You need to give your body what it needs and understand how it works.

You don't want to be doing what everyone else is doing when it comes osteoporosis because what they're doing isn't working. Another point I'd like to make is that you lose a lot of minerals when you have a slow metabolism. These minerals actually help you to simulate calcium properly. Vitamin D is necessary for you to be able to utilize calcium. That means that if you're eating foods that are low in vitamin D and many foods are nowadays because the cows and other animals are not getting sunlight then your going to have trouble getting the full benefit from the calcium supplements or from your calcium rich foods. Your best source of vitamin D is sunlight and many people live in places where they don't have access to sunlight or they work in jobs that don't allow them to be outside. I know that may seem overwhelming to some people because there's so many things you can do to help improve bone health but my biggest suggestion for people is to start slow.

Take baby steps. You may just want to improve the quality of food you're eating You may want to seek out organic foods or better quality sugars like raw honey These foods will help increase your metabolism and get your digestion working properly. From there you can start bringing in more eggshells and milk into your diet. This will then help you digest and assimilate calcium. If you just drink a lot of milk and eggshells but eat a terrible diet of non-organic foods then you're really not going to get the full benefit from the calcium your eating or supplementing. It's pretty simple inflammation of any kind is going to inhibit your body's ability to absorb calcium. You need to live a healthy lifestyle in order to have good bone health. We like to take many shortcuts when it comes to our health.

We want to take supplements instead of eating healthy foods. The thing is though a lot times in life the shortcuts are not foolproof solutions. We need to stop being lazy and start doing the work now. You want to start eating healthy foods like grass fed meats, raw honey, organic fruits and vegetables. You also want to eat things like grass fed organic milk. These are the foods that are good for you and will help you improve bone health. You’re not going to get good bone health just by exercising or by taking crappy calcium supplement's. In conclusion, there's a lot more to bone health then what most people realize.

You want to change your diet for the better in order to have the best bone health possible and prevent yourself from dealing with osteoporosis.