LifeCare Chiropractic

The Best Chiropractic Care in Mesa, Arizona

natural pain relief

Chronic Widespread Pain and Vitamin D

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CAN AVOIDING THE SUN BE THE REASON YOU’RE HURTING?

Wow…it must be “beat the dead horse” week.  This study found that those experiencing chronic, widespread pain were much more likely to have low Vit D serum levels.  Now, it may be hard to tell whether the low Vit D is from lack of exercise outside or that low Vit D really does increase our likelihood of feeling pain (which IS possible), but given the safety and low cost of supplementation it would make sense to add it to your regimen of chiropractic care for your pain.

Read More.

Could Your Anti-Inflammatory Destroy Your Brain?

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I was teaching a class to doctors this weekend and, on a break, heard one of the doctors on the phone talking about a patient with costochondritis and telling the person on the other end to take an anti-inflammatory to fix the inflammation.

This is THE response in society and in medicine today.  Sure, most physicians and patients are aware of the risk of ulcers with anti-inflammatories but rarely understand the risks beyond this.  As the author of an ebook that covers the vast array of side effects from anti-inflammatories (click here to view the book on Amazon.com), I am always happy to add new, unexpected side effects to this dangerous class of drugs that we take so blissfully.

Diabetes and prediabetes is very bad for the brain.  This is one of the reasons we are seeing an increase in the rates of cognitive decline, dementia, Alzheimer’s dementia and Parkinsons disease.  These conditions are very strongly related to the diabetic spectrum.  Given the rate of prediabetes in this country, that means that well over half of us are already at risk.

This increased risk is likely due to some combination of blod flow to the brain (the diabetic spectrum is very bad for the health of your blood vessels) and a disruption in the way brain cells are able to use energy (brain cells require lots and lots of energy made from glucose in their mitochondria).  So, you can envision that anything that is going to negatively effect blood flow in the brain will be a bad thing ON TOP OF being diabetic.

Enter anti-inflammatories, specifically a particularly nasty one called indomethacin (Indocin).  This particular study looked at what happened to blood flow in the brain of a small group of diabetics in response to the administration of indomethacin.

Here’s what they found:

  1. Mean flow velocity (a good thing, higher = more blood flow to the brain) was reduced after indomethacin use.
  2. The researchers, however, seemed happy that, when indomethacin was taken, the blood flow in the brain was improved when the patients held their breath multiple times in a row.

Certainly I can see where the researchers may view the improvement in the brain blood flow with breath holding as a good thing.  However, given that most diabetics (or prediabetics, for that matter) don’t go around holding their breath multiple times in a row, I’m not entirely sure this overshadows the negative side of indomethacin’s effects on overall blood flow.

The bottom line is that, while indomethacin may show a benefit in those holding their breath, this is not a commonly done behavior in diabetics or prediabetics that I am aware of.  However, merely taking indomethacin slowed the flow of blood into the brain–a clearly damaging action that will do long term harm to the brain cells.

While I’ve said it before, let me re-iterate that you need to view taking ANY pill, although in this case we are looking at indomethacin, as a risk benefit scenario.  Is the reason you are taking this drug going to outweigh the long list of side effects that will inevitably come as a result of taking the drug?  Better yet, is there another route you could take (such as, maybe…chiropractic?) that does not have the associated side effects?

On the other hand, if your brain is not that important to you, than pop away.

 

Arthritis Relief: Is Ginger Good for Joint Relief?

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We want to live life to our fullest; this means no arthritis pain. Many use drugs for arthritis relief, but safety is a concerns. Is ginger good for joint relief?

Mother Nature knew what she was doing.  Us–not so much.

It seems like anytime we try to mess with nature we screw things up.  Anti-inflammatories are certainly on this list.  Here is how things usually work:

  • Nature makes a compound that positively effects some pathway in our body.  This effect is usually subtle and takes time for the effect to show, but has a very good safety profile for long term use.
  • Scientists find said natural compound and modify it so that it has a strong short term effect but thus becomes dangerous in the long run.

Overall, the drug companies try to find compounds that have the greatest effect at the lowest concentrations.  They want compounds with as high of a LD50 as possible (the LD50 is the level at which the compound kills 50% of the study participants).  But they all will kill at high enough dosages (even water can kill if you stuff enough of it in our bloodstream).

While the list of problems associated with anti-inflammatories (specifically the NSAID class of drugs) is quite long and has been addressed in prior posts that can be read here, suffice it to say that I consider this one of the most dangerous classes of drugs, resulting from a combination of the broad spectrum of subtle side effects combined with the near-universal belief in their safety by the general population.

 There are many natural, unadulterated compounds that have been shown to lower inflammation and have solid research behind them.  Curcumin / turmeric, boswellia, cat’s claw and proteolytic enzymes to name a few.  Ginger is also on the list.

This particular study looks at the effectiveness of ginger to both control pain associated with arthritis as well as protect the lining of the stomach (a MAJOR concern with NSAIDs).  It was compared with diclofenac (Voltaren), a common anti-inflammatory used for arthritis pain.

The safety profile of ginger was, as expected, much better on the stomach than the diclofenac.  Surprisingly, the pain relief was equivalent in both groups (as measured by the Visual Analog Scale, or VAS).

If you have tried ginger for arthritis relief, what was your experience?

RECIPE TO CREATE A DRUG USER

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The Federal Bureau of Narcotics was formed over 80 years ago in 1930.  In 1954, President Eisenhower formed a council to battle narcotics use here in the United States.  In 1971 President Nixon coined the term “war on drugs.”  This was further strengthened by President Reagan in 1982.  Overall, untold billions of federal dollars have been spent on this effort.  Man did we get it all wrong.

We were spending our money and efforts at illicit drug use, while slowly building a society that not only condoned prescription narcotic drug use, but PAID FOR IT!  Beginning at least in 2008, the number of deaths associated with prescription narcotic use exceeded those deaths caused by illicit drug use.

Codeine, OxyContin, Percocet, Vicodin, morphine,  Xanax and Valium (these 2 are benzodiazapines–but frequently abused), Valium, Tramadol, Tylenol 3.

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly prescriptions for narcotic pain relievers are given out.  In the ER it is almost a given.  High likelihood in urgent care.  Still far too common in a primary care settings.

And then there are the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs).  Why should we throw something as safe and harmless as NSAIDs in with the narcotic drugs?

I firmly believe that, as time progresses (decades, probably) we will begin to understand just how dangerous this class of drugs is.  Arthritis /  joint damage, heart attacks, strokes, impotence, GI bleeds, disruption of intestinal barriers, dementia…this list of known effects seems to lengthen every month.

The problem here is that of sheer scale of use. Between over the counter use and the 70 Million prescriptions per year, it is estimated that there are 30 BILLION doses used per year.  That’s with a “b.”  Even uncommon side effects become magnified by this volume of use.  Of course, bleeding ulcers, heart attacks and strokes are not uncommon, so the math just gets more complicated from there.

So what does all of this have to do with this particular article?  This article looked at analgesic use after low risk surgery (gall bladder, cataract, TURP for prostate enlargement and varicose vein stripping) and what happens after 7 days and one year.  The results were surprising:

  1. Opioids were newly prescribed to 7.1% within 7 days of being discharged from the hospital
  2. Opioids were prescribed to 7.7% at 1 year from surgery
  3. Instead of going down, the number of patients receiving a prescription for opioids at 1 year increased to 15.9%
  4. Overall, an opioid prescriptions within 7 days of surgery made it  44% more likely to be a long term user
  5.  NSAIDs were prescribed to 0.3% within 7 days of discharge
  6. NSAIDs prescriptions jumped to 7.8% at 1 year from surgery
  7. Those taking NSAIDs within 7 days of surgery were almost 400% more likely to become long-term NSAID users

Wow.  Talked about generating a society that is addicted to drugs.  And while this study looks at low risk surgery, how similar would the numbers be for neck pain?  Low back pain?  Knee pain or headache?  Makes me happy to be a chiropractor.

Again, I would ask…is the “War on Drugs” looking at the wrong side of the prescription pad?