You will either believe today's post from thechronicleherald.ca (see link below) or you won't, depending on how open you are to alternative nerve pain treatments. I'm sitting right on top of the fence. Homeopathy can't work according to conventional science and yet thousands of patients swear by it and testify to its effectiveness. Can they all be succumbing to a placebo effect? Probably not but it does require a suspension of disbelief yet as we all know, living with neuropathy is so individual, what works for one can be nonsense for the other. Worth reading this article then and maybe using it as a starting point for further research and investigation.
Sarah Trask, HD (RHom), DSHM | Homeopathic Perspective Published February 15, 2017
If you or someone you know suffers from chronic pain, there are compelling results in the way of treatment with homeopathic medicine.
Chronic pain is a blanket term used to describe pain that lasts for 12 weeks or more and can result from any one of hundreds of conditions, from fibromyalgia to neuropathic pain to arthritis to shingles.
For years, the default method for treating chronic pain has been, and still is, with prescription or over-the-counter painkillers, all of which can have detrimental health effects and can lead to addiction.
There is another option to long-term use of painkillers, and that is homeopathy. I have treated hundreds of patients with chronic pain ranging in severity and across the board in diagnosis with much success. Homeopathy provides relief without the chance of addiction, as well as without side effects. The following examples demonstrate real-life cases and their experiences and what treatment was like:
Case one
Patient presented with severe neurological pain, all on the left side of the body, for the better part of a year. After being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis by a neurologist, they came for homeopathic treatment. After careful investigation, it was found that the pain had initially begun only a few hours after receiving a Hepatitis B vaccination, which may have been a side effect.
The pain was accompanied by numbness and tingling and concomitant visual disturbances, as well as severe constipation. Remedy Sepia Officianalis 200ch was administered daily for five days, and by day seven, the patient was pain free in addition to vision being restored completely and, after a month, bowel movements were regular again. This patient had a relapse of visual disturbance six months later, took one more dose of remedy and has been normal without relapse for last five years.
Case two
Patient presented with fibromyalgia and joint pain for two years and was unable to work or care for family because of the pain. The painkillers and sleeping pills made them too fatigued to even complete daily chores. Depression and weight gain followed as a result of chronic pain (very common).
The pain was worse in the evening and night, worse when standing, worse when lying on the right side, better in heat and dry weather and worse with the approach of a storm. Depression manifested in apathy and feelings of indifference, and the patient had severe indecisiveness. This patient would also experience night sweats, especially on the chest and torso.
The remedy given was Phosphorus 1M and, within three weeks, pain was reduced by 75 per cent and the patient felt more alert and was sleeping through the night (no more sweats). Two months later, pain level is reduced almost 100 per cent and this patient feels energetic and motivated enough to begin exercising, feelings of apathy are gone and there’s no need for painkillers or sleeping pills.
Homeopathy only works when the time is taken to investigate any known causes, and factors which make the pain worse and/or better, as well as investigating all other changes associated with the time frame of which they’ve been unwell.
By matching the patients unique symptoms, regardless of diagnosis, based on the information they provide, with a remedy that treats those specific characteristics, homeopathy can be very successful in the treatment of chronic pain.
http://thechronicleherald.ca/valleyharvester/1441837-treating-chronic-pain-with-homeopathy
Today's post from the always-reliable sciencedaily.com (see link below) talks about an exciting new breakthrough in the field of how the brain processes pain. It's literally to do with brainwaves! If only it were possible to tune your brain yourself, so that more alpha waves from the front of the brain could be used to quell pain symptoms but unfortunately, we're not there yet. However, this straightforward article does point the way towards new therapies in the future. The theory already forms the basis of many meditation techniques. Worth a read.
Scientists successfully tune the brain to alleviate pain Date:November 3, 2016 Source:Manchester University
Scientists at The University of Manchester have shown for the first time that if the brain is 'tuned-in' to a particular frequency, pain can be alleviated.
Chronic pain- pain which lasts for more than six months -- is a real problem for many people, with 20-50 % of the general population estimated to suffer from it (comprising 20% of consultations in general practice).
It is a much greater problem in the elderly with 62% of the UK population over 75 year's old suffering from it. Chronic pain is often a mixture of recurrent acute pains and chronic persistent pain. Unfortunately there are very few treatments available that are completely safe, particularly in the elderly.
Nerve cells on the surface of the brain are co-ordinated with each other at a particular frequency depending on the state of the brain. Alpha waves which are tuned at 9-12 cycles per second have been recently associated with enabling parts of the brain concerned with higher control to influence other parts of the brain.
For instance researchers at the Human Pain Research Group at The University of Manchester found that alpha waves from the front of the brain, the forebrain, are associated with placebo analgesia and may be influencing how other parts of the brain process pain.
This led to the idea that if we can 'tune' the brain to express more alpha waves, perhaps we can reduce pain experienced by people with certain conditions.
Dr Kathy Ecsy and her colleagues in The University of Manchester's Human Pain Research Group have shown that this can be done by providing volunteers with goggles that flash light in the alpha range or by sound stimulation in both ears phased to provide the same stimulus frequency. They found that both visual and auditory stimulation significantly reduced the intensity of pain induced by laser-heat repeatedly shone on the back of the arm.
Professor Anthony Jones is the director of the Manchester Pain Consortium which is focussed on improving the understanding and treatment of chronic pain. He said: "This is very exciting because it provides a potentially new, simple and safe therapy that can now be trialled in patients. At recent public engagements events we have had a lot of enthusiasm from patients for this kind of neuro-therapeutic approach."
Further studies are required to test the effectiveness in patients with different pain conditions but the simplicity and low cost of the technology should facilitate such clinical studies.
Dr Chris Brown, who is a Lecturer in Psychology at The University of Liverpool, who was involved in the research while working in Manchester, said: "It is interesting that similar results were obtained with visual and auditory stimulation, which will provide some flexibility when taking this technology into patient studies. For instance this might be particularly useful for patients having difficulty sleeping because of recurrent pain at night."
Story Source:
Materials provided by Manchester University. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Journal Reference:
K. Ecsy, A.K.P. Jones, C.A. Brown. Alpha-range visual and auditory stimulation reduces the perception of pain. European Journal of Pain, 2016; DOI: 10.1002/ejp.960
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/11/161103091026.htm
Today's post from clinicalpainadvisor.com (see link below) is an ever-so-subtle addition to the current media-inspired movement that claims all things 'opioid' are bad. It addresses opioids and neuropathic pain directly and comes to negative conclusions based on the study results that show that opioids produce little improvement in function in people who take them. However, opioids don't address the disease and are not meant to be 'cures'. Don't these people realise that opioids are never meant to improve function - they're meant to reduce pain and in that respect, they are very successful. Of course, reduced pain can enable people to function better but only because their pain is gone, not because the original illness has been addressed. Of course the media realise this full well! Inventing negative effects that were never claimed to be benefits of opioid use in the first place, is a sort of negative publicity that's used in politics all the time. The fact is that if you are taking opioids for neuropathic pain, you have tried everything else and nothing works, leaving you with opioids that generally do the job. Of course they have to be controlled and monitored and the patient has to take some responsibility to make sure that the potential for addiction is minimised but good doctors should be monitoring you to within an inch of your life to make sure you're not entering any sort of spiral. Opioids have been used for pain control since the dawn of time but like everything in this modern world, we always seem to need a sledgehammer to crack a nut!
A new study suggests that opioid prescriptions for patients with neuropathic pain, may not improve their physical function or disability. In fact, results from the study — conducted by the University of Alberta and published in Pain Medicine — indicate that opioid use could be harmful when it comes to physical recovery for patients with neuropathic pain.
"We studied patients with neuropathic pain from nerve injuries such as diabetic neuropathy and pinched nerves, and the ones who weren't prescribed any opioids had statistically lower disability and higher physical functioning scores," said Geoff Bostick, PhD, lead author of the study.
TRENDING ON CPA: ACA Supports Proposed Guideline for Prescribing Opioids to Patients With Chronic Pain
The study sample included 789 patients with neuropathic pain across Canada. Patients gave self-reported measures of physical function (pain disability index) and a medical outcomes study short form-12 physical function (PCSS-12), at the beginning of the study, then again at 6 months and 12 months after treatment began. Analysis of covariance models was created to examine the association between opioid therapy and both physical functioning outcomes with adjustment for confounding.
Results showed that patients prescribed opioid treatment did not report greater physical functioning or lower disability than patients who were not prescribed opioids — even after the results were adjusted for disease severity. The improvements in disability and physical functioning scores from baseline and 12 months for all groups were "modest and may not be clinically significant," authors reported.
They asserted that while opioids are a powerful painkiller, the results of the study testify that improved function does not necessarily follow opioid treatment.
In addition, they highlighted the association between opioid prescription and a patient's quality of life, considering that the treatment may not be aiding the patient's functionality. They call for further research to analyze this correlation.
For those who have chronic pain but are medically cleared for physical activity, a graded approach to recovery is suggested, according to Dr. Bostick. "I tell patients to walk until they are at 50% of their tolerance — walk and stop before the pain gets too bad. Each week, walking time is gradually increased. Over time, this tolerance will slowly increase and so will physical function."
Reference
Bostick G, Toth C, Carr E et al. Physical Functioning and Opioid use in Patients with Neuropathic Pain. Pain Med. 2015;16(7):1361-1368. doi:10.1111/pme.12702.
This article originally appeared on MPR.
http://www.clinicalpainadvisor.com/neuropathic-pain/how-effective-are-opioids-in-neuropathic-pain/article/467341/
