WHY SHOULD I THINK ABOUT BECOMING HEALTHIER?

Do you believe in signals?
Sounds a little philosophical and drammatical.But I am sure we all have experienced that voice inside us that catches the signals around us and bestows us with an intuition about which way to follow.

When ever we eat something,we feel that our tummy should be full.Once,we fill it ,sometimes the next feeling is to try more even if it adds to our discomfort.On the other hand at times when we se something we donot like or cherish,the desire to eat itself also vanishes.So,what we need to observe is that usually we donot eat for we require ,we eat because of some emotional angle to it.
Some people eat less when busy or low and distressed,others over eat in pain and joy.We eat more or less depending upon what is served to us.This is opposite to the universal rule that we should "Eat to live and not live to eat".This made me question as to why are we doing it,as anything against the order or principles of nature are abnormal.We usually come accross our friends and relatives who have metabolic disorders and food plays an important role in causing and curing these both.
Then why should not we move towards a healthy tommorrow?

Not only nutrition but also,sedentary and stressful lives of all of us are leading us towards a life full of pain in one form or the other.Low back ache and neck pain is the most common of the pain stories these days,irrespective of age.Knee pain and knee replacement is something almost everyone reading this must be aware of,and why is that so common because somewhere we all have made pain become part of our lives.Strange buty we donot feel the need to be healthy and pain but chase pain.
Its all nothing but the outcome of the stress and hypertension that prevails amongst us all in our lives.We are moving towards an unhealthy tommorrow.Coming accross people suffering so much with pain and disease,i feel even if just 1% of all of us help each other get motivated and get driven towards a healthy tommorrow,there is nothing else like that.

lets find out reasons to be healthy and help others find theirs!!!

Understanding Pain and its types

PAIN
Its a word that produces a sense of discomfort even when we think about it.By its literal definition,pain is defined as physical suffering or discomfort caused by illness or injury.
The International Association for the Study of Pain's widely used definition states: "Pain is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage."

I relate more with its latter definition as I believe that pain is not only physical,but mental and emotional too.

While coming across pain in all these years,I found out that even pain when happens to any individual causes a blockage in their mental state and hinders whatever they do in a way that they get upset and distressed emotionally.Pain perception would be still associated with the intensity of the pain stimulus and the degree of damage caused to the affected tissue.

According to the gate control theory, pain signals are not free to reach the brain as soon as they are generated at the injured tissues or sites. They need to encounter certain ‘neurological gates’ at the spinal cord (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinal_cord) level and these gates determine whether the pain signals should reach the brain or not. In other words, pain is perceived or felt when the gate gives way to the pain signals and it is less intense or not at all perceived when the gate closes for the signals to pass through.

This theory gives the explanation for why someone finds relief by rubbing,massaging or pressing at the site of pain and this is what we need to understand to help ourselves and others help overcome pain.

Various factors determine how the pain signals should be treated at the neurological gates. They are:

• The intensity of the pain signals
• The intensity of the external sensory signals (touch, temperature and pressure), if generated at the site of injury
• The message from the brain itself (to send the pain signals or not),which means modifying the message by providing it an alternate route

Another important aspect we need to understand is that emotions and thoughts play and important role in effecting and producing pain

Pain signal transmission can be largely influenced by emotions and thoughts. People do not feel a chronic pain or, to be more appropriate, the pain does not disturb them when they concentrate on other activities that interest them. Whereas, people who are anxious or depressed feel intense pain and find it difficult to cope up with it. This is because the brain sends messages through descending fibers that stop, reduce or amplify the transmission of pain signals through the gate, depending on the thoughts and emotions of a person.

One of the tremendous advances in pain management research is the advent of Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (TENS). The gate control theory forms the basis of TENS. In this technique, the selective stimulation of the large diameter nerve fibers carrying non-pain sensory stimuli from a specific region nullifies or reduces the effect of pain signals from the region. TENS is a non-invasive and inexpensive pain management approach that has been widely used for the treatment of chronic and intractable pain that are otherwise non-responsive to analgesics and surgical treatments. TENS is highly advantageous over pain medications in the aspect that it does not have the problem of drug interactions and toxicity.

Many other invasive and non-invasive electrical stimulation techniques have been found to be useful in various chronic pain conditions like arthritic pain, diabetic neuropathy, fibromyalgia, etc. The theory has also been extensively studied in the treatment of chronic back pain and cancer pain. However, favorable results are not attained in some conditions and the long term efficacy of the techniques based on the theory is under question.

The gate control theory has dramatically revolutionized the field of pain research and it has sown seeds for numerous studies that aim at presenting a pain-free lifestyle to the patients who suffer from chronic pain.

Referances

Abram SE (1993). 1992 Bonica Lecture. Advances in chronic pain management since gate control. Regional anesthesia, 18 (2), 66-81 PMID: 8098221

Bishop B (1980). Pain: its physiology and rationale for management. Part III. Consequences of current concepts of pain mechanisms related to pain management. Physical therapy, 60 (1), 24-37 PMID: 6243184

Melzack R, & Wall PD (1965). Pain mechanisms: a new theory. Science (New York, N.Y.), 150 (3699), 971-9 PMID: 5320816

Moayedi M, & Davis KD (2013). Theories of pain: from specificity to gate control. Journal of neurophysiology, 109 (1), 5-12 PMID: 23034364

Nizard J, Raoul S, Nguyen JP, & Lefaucheur JP (2012). Invasive stimulation therapies for the treatment of refractory pain. Discovery medicine, 14 (77), 237-46 PMID: 23114579

Nnoaham KE, & Kumbang J (2008). Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) for chronic pain. The Cochrane database of systematic reviews (3) PMID: 18646088

Tashani O, & Johnson M (2009). Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (TENS) A Possible Aid for Pain Relief in Developing Countries? The Libyan journal of medicine, 4 (2), 62-5 PMID: 21483510

My mind since many years now,almost a decade,is full of thoughts and dreams about healthcare.I just always thought as child to be a help for my fellows and friends made it sure that they are mentally stressfree.There is some power within us all,that comes out into play whenever we see or hear some stressful instances or about pain.Somewhere inside me,i always wanted to jump out and lend a helping hand to anyone to everyone around me.Strived really hard to complete my graduation and enter professional life as a physiotherapist.With God's grace,i joined in a charitable which further increased my passion towards helping others in pain.DIRECTION,i must say,i got towards my passion of helping others.Now,I exactly knew how I could feed my soul daily.

The feeling of pain that a patient used to come up and describe me,and their family members or friends they were accompanied by,was something that I described earlier always touched me.Its that I always wanted to reach maximum number of people.Its our destiny or what I feel that,god gives us what we desire for,in one form or other.Whatever we ask from the universe time and again,somehow comes to us.This is why may be,god gave me my first job in a charitable.Its there that I got the opportunity to come in contact with so many people in pain.

Pain,the word itself sounds so depressing and gives a distressful feeling.I found out that problems like low back ache,neck pain,knee pain and shoulder restriction are very common in the general public these days.It was really shocking to see that not only the aged,but all age groups were having the same kind of problems.When we used to study,we were taught that osteo-arthritis was found in Old Age people.But it was sad to see young people of mid twenties having acquired osteo arthritis,children of various age groups having neck pain and frozen shoulder due to playing on tablets,ipads and games on phones and thus lacking the routine of outdoor games and proper movement required at their age.

One more very disappointing feature I found out,was that,people suffering from stroke were the young and the middle aged.This indicated that the stress level and hypertension were found on an increasing trend in these age groups.I made it sure that I wouldnt miss any opportunity to help the young and busy people to get rid of their stress by helping them  make a habit of doing exercise.It took lot of hardwork though,to convince them not to miss a single day of session with us.This enabled them to do exercise and take pain management treatment of their ailments as well.After finding relief in few sessions,it encouraged them to induce a habit of exercising daily,thus helping them all also flush out the negative thought process and stress.

In my next follow up blogs,i would like to share the common problems,their treatment and responses attained in different cases and individuals.