People who live with chronic lower back pain understand all too well what it’s like not to be believed half the time and not to be able to control the pain much of the time. However, researchers are dedicating a lot of time and resources into finding ways to manage chronic pain of many types, including lower back pain.

A study presented at the European Federation of International Association for the Study of Pain Chapters (EFIC), researchers showed that of 181 patients who were living with chronic lower back pain, the majority who took Cymbalta reported less pain and this reduced pain lasted for the 41 weeks of the study.

The trial was an open label trial, which meant that everyone knew what they were taking, unlike a blinded study, which took place for 13 weeks before the open label, when patients were given a placebo or the study medication.

After the 13-week blinded study, the patients were divided into groups where one group received 60 mg of the medication and the other 120 mg. This was to see how long the effects of pain relief would last.

The patients who had received the Cymbalta during the initial 13-week trial were given the same dose that they were taking then and those patients who were on the placebo during the 13-week trial were switched to Cymbalta.

Fifty-eight of the 13-week study patients responded well to the Cymbalta, so researchers followed them to see if their response to the medication would continue over the 41 weeks. What the researchers found was that not only did the patients who responded in the 13 weeks continue to respond later, many of them saw their pain decrease even more.

This finding is promising and may mean that many people can be helped find pain relief. Of course, like all medications, Cymbalta is not recommended for everyone and only your doctor will be able to tell you may be a candidate for it.

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Post from: Blisstree

Cymbalta Helping with Low Chronic Back Pain

When you have chronic pain, how it’s managed, how it affects your life, and how you see it affects how you feel mentally and emotionally. If you see your pain as unchanging, as unbeatable, you may tend to give in to it, believing that you have no control over your pain. Pain can affect your quality of life. It can keep you from going out and socializing. It can keep you from doing your favorite activities and hobbies. Pain can also keep you from sleeping so you become sleep-deprived and fatigued. You may not be able to prepare meals, so you may go hungry. You may not be able to care for yourself, so you may be unbathed – and so on.

So, given all these ways pain can affect a person, it’s no wonder that this can lead to depression and doctors have noticed that connection a long time ago. Not only are pain and depression two of the most common problems seen by doctors, the can occur at the same time, or co-occur, in 30 to 50% of cases.

The Journal of the American Medical Association just published an article about a study that looked at the self-management of pain and use of antidepressant. In the study, 123 patients were randomly assigned to receive 12 weeks of treatment for depression and then 6 sessions (over 12 weeks) that helped them learn a self-management program for pain. This program involved learning how to perform coping and distraction techniques, and do muscle relaxation and deep breathing exercises. They were then followed with more therapy for 6 months. A second group of 127 patients received what is called “usual care,” what their doctors would routinely prescribe for people in their situation.

What the researchers found was that the patients in the first group were two to three times more likely to say their depression had eased than those patients who received the usual care. Even better, they had a four times higher rate of seeing their depression disappear within a year and their pain was lessened too than the other group.

Perhaps with numbers showing this type of improvement, more doctors will become aware of the connection and approach management in a wider fashion.

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Post from: Blisstree

Chronic Pain and Depression

I don’t look like there’s anything wrong with me. If you saw me you wouldn’t know that I’m in pain. Everyday activities are challenging and I never know how my body will feel from one day to the next. Simple things, like laundry and dishes, become impossible some days, barely tolerable others.

I live with Fibromyalgia.

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I hurt my back in a fall eleven years ago. For many years I dealt with trying to learn how to live with the chronic pain from it. I tried everything; medication, injections, physical therapy. Nothing helped; my doctors finally told me I’d have to live with it.

About five years ago my pain changed. It moved through my body, it moved beyond my back. It felt all-consuming. Some doctors told me that it was ‘referred’ pain, my back still the cause of it. Others told me that it was in my head.

A move brought a new doctor. One who listened carefully to me, beyond just my medical records. And he was able to diagnose the Fibromyalgia. It was both frightening and a relief. It was nice to have an answer, to know I was right thinking there was something else going on. But it was frightening getting a diagnosis that had no solution. I’m glad it’s not more serious, it’s not life threatening. But it has changed my life.

There are medications out now for Fibromyalgia, unfortunately they didn’t work for me. Over the last couple of years I’ve learned to live with it, gained some coping skills that give me the best chance of functioning as normally as I can.

The most important thing, and the hardest, was accepting it. I hurt and that’s not going to change. I listen to my body, if I push it too far it will be worse. I’ve learned what time of day I feel best and I schedule myself accordingly. I’ve made my surroundings as accommodating as I can–everything from what shelf towels are on to how I sit at my computer.

It’s easiest at home; it gets harder out in public. I don’t look ill and I’m not elderly. It’s hard asking for help lifting things. I’ve gotten more than a few raised eyebrows. I look like I should be able to lift a case of water or put the groceries in the car. I didn’t ask for help for a long time, it felt like giving in to something I didn’t want to admit had so much control over me. I learned the hard way, lifting that case of water made me hurt more. My mind needed to accept it to help my body feel the best it can.

Fibromyalgia is a challenge, but it can be manageable. With acceptance and awareness I function better now than I did when I was first diagnosed. I have good days and bad days, but now I feel like I have some control over all of them.

For further information about Fibromyalgia, check the Mayo Clinic website.

Post from: Blisstree

The Invisible Illness

Chronic pain is also extremely difficult to treat in most cases. Acute pain is caused – usually – by an identifiable source and is fixable. This includes a broken bone, an incision from surgery, a toothache. But chronic pain is not as easily identified, not as specific, and often not fixable.

A new study, published in the latest issue of JAMA, has found that people living with chronic pain who took part in a collaborative care approach (patient and clinician education with symptom monitoring and feedback to the primary care physician) showed improvements in lowering the intensity of pain and pain-related disability, more so than did patients who received so-called “usual care.” This, depending on the type of pain, usually involves medications, maybe surgery, physiotherapy, and so on.

This finding was also seen among patients who had depression along with or as a result of their chronic pain.

You can read more about this interesting study in the journal’s press release, Program helps improve management of chronic pain.

Do you live with chronic pain? What have you tried to help it?

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Post from: Blisstree

“Collaborative care” helps in chronic pain

About one-third of patients with diabetic neuropathy have overlying compression of certain nerves in the leg that may worsen the pain and cause loss of sensation at the bottom of the foot. Several studies have demonstrated that the nerves may increase in diameter in diabetic patients. In this study, UT Southwestern investigators are hoping to show that by releasing pressure from the specific nerves of these patients, pain may be decreased and sensation improved.

Similar to carpal tunnel surgery- this surgery would alleviate the pressure on the inflamed nerve area and decrease the pain and suffering that these patients have to live with on a daily basis. The scientists and doctors leading the study are hopeful that they will be able to restore the protective sensation thus decreasing the risk for cuts, ulcers and ultimately amputations.

via Southwestern Medical Center

Post from: Blisstree

New surgery to alleviate pain due to diabetic neuropathy now being studied