Using our mobile app? Be sure to check for any new app updates to receive any enhancements.
Logo

Get Healthy!

41 Results for search "Pain".

Wellness Library Results

Have you ever noticed how aches and pains seem to fade when your adrenaline is really pumping? Or have you ever felt pain deep in your gut after a tragedy? If so, you've already discovered that pain -- like so many other things in life -- is deeply sensitive to stress. When you're under stress -- brief or lingering, mild or severe -- your body releases chemicals that change the way your brain sen...

A better understanding of pain -- and how to treat it -- means a gentler death for many patients with terminal illnesses. People who are near death have more important things to do than suffer. The final days, weeks, and months should be a time to connect with loved ones and reflect on life, says Kandyce Powell, RN. As the executive director of the Maine Hospice Council, Powell has stood at the si...

There's more to first aid than covering up wounds or stopping bleeding. When treating an injury, relieving pain should also be a top priority. Prompt treatment for pain will make an injured person feel more calm and comfortable. Pain relief may also make it possible for the person to move safely on her own -- a handy thing if the nearest phone is miles away. Pain can also be a guide to treatment. ...

A construction worker might blame his jackhammer for his sore back. An office worker might chalk up the ache to an uncomfortable chair. Fair enough. But if either person happens to be a smoker, there just might be a different explanation for his or her pain. In recent years, researchers have uncovered a surprising connection between smoking and back pain. In study after study, smokers seem to be m...

What is acupuncture? Acupuncture is an ancient Chinese therapy that uses hair-like needles to stimulate specific points on the body. Practically unknown in this country until the early 1970s, acupuncture has become a common alternative treatment for a wide number of illnesses and complaints. A 2007 national health survey found that about 3.2 million Americans had used acupuncture in the previous y...

What is biofeedback? Biofeedback is a tool that helps people gain more control over their bodies. It works by translating subtle physical changes into easy-to-read signals. Through biofeedback, patients can learn how their state of mind affects their circulation, tension, and pain. In the end, they often feel more relaxed and more in control. Biofeedback is often used in combination with other rel...

For nearly 20 years, social worker Susan Mason suffered from mysterious and debilitating muscle pain throughout most of her body. Time and time again, doctors told Mason that she just had the flu, or that she was depressed and the aches would eventually go away on their own. But they never did. "It just hurt too badly for me to believe there wasn't something wrong," Mason says. Finally in 1999, d...

We all ask a lot from our backs. We bend, we lift, we slouch -- it's enough to make a back complain. According to the Mayo Clinic, four out of five adults experience back pain at some point in their lives. Two times out of three, injuries to muscles and ligaments in the lower back are to blame. These injuries are painful, but they can also be temporary. With proper care, most people can look forwa...

What is biofeedback? Biofeedback is a tool that helps sufferers alleviate their own pain. By means of devices sensitive to very small changes in bodily conditions, it allows the user to monitor and fine-tune the connections between emotions and health. The mind can play an important role in treating headaches and other types of chronic pain. Biofeedback helps people recognize and control the tens...

If you're suffering from pain, you have an extra reason to be active. No matter what type of pain you have or where you hurt, the right type of exercise just might bring some relief. Scientists are still trying to understand all of the ways that exercise influences pain, but it's already clear that regular exercise should be a part of any comprehensive plan to bring pain under control. Arthritis ...

Fortunately, most minor injuries are simple to treat -- so simple, in fact, that you can find all of the materials that you need in a well-stocked first aid kit. An inexpensive store-bought kit is a good place to start. You can also assemble your own using the list below as a guide. You should customize your kit to meet the needs of your family. For example, if someone in your household has type 2...

What causes headaches? Headaches feel like they come from deep within the head. But they brain itself has no pain receptors. It's the skin, muscles, and blood vessels that cover the skull and the nerves that run from your brain to your head and face that cause the discomfort we call a headache. Different types include tension headaches, migraines, and cluster headaches. High blood pressure, eye ...

Whether you spend your day moving furniture or sitting in an office chair, you're probably no stranger to back pain. According to the Mayo Clinic, four out of five Americans suffer back pain at some point in their lives. It's an expensive proposition, costing the United States an estimated $100 billion a year. Although problems can arise anywhere in the spine, the lower back is Pain Central. Low b...

From an early age, we learn that the touch of a hand can ease pain. When a toddler bangs his knee in a tricycle accident, he'll instinctively rub the sore spot. Likewise, an office worker with stiff shoulders will probably try to knead them. And if a dancer can't shake the throbbing pain in her back, she just might schedule an appointment with a massage therapist. The healing power of a well-place...

What kinds of things can trigger a migraine? The cascade of neurological glitches that cause migraines can be set in motion by exposure to many things in daily life, though not all sufferers respond to the same triggers. One of the most common triggers is stress. When the pressure is on, your body undergoes various physical changes, including alterations in brain chemicals, blood flow, and oxygen...

Back surgery is a booming business. About 500,000 Americans undergo surgery each year for low back problems alone. According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, we spend more than $11 billion each year on operations to relieve back pain. Unfortunately, it doesn't always buy relief. For patients with serious structural problems or disease, back operations are often highly successful...

Disks are your spine's shock absorbers, flexible cushions that fit in between vertebrae. When you move your back, the disks absorb the pressure on your spine. They're incredibly strong, but they're subject to wear and tear. As you and your back age, the outer covering of these cushions can wear thin, especially if you strain your back. Eventually, the jelly-like center of one or more disks may sta...

The neck and the lower back lie at opposite ends of the spinal column, but they have much in common. They both support heavy loads, and they both tend to hurt. According to a report in the Annals of Internal Medicine, roughly 13 percent of American adults suffer from neck pain at any given time. Half of all adults can at least remember a time when their neck felt sore and stiff. Like back pain, n...

How long has it been since someone told you to "sit up straight"? Kids get advice on their posture all the time, but some adults could definitely use a reminder. People who slouch throughout the day can be vulnerable to a wide variety of problems, including back pain. If your back aches, you just might be able to relieve your pain by straightening up your act. How does poor posture cause back pai...

About 1 million people suffer from whiplash injuries each year, usually after being involved in minor fender-benders. Yet for the numerous whiplash cases reported, it can still be difficult for many doctors to diagnose and harder still to pinpoint an effective treatment. Although 90 percent of patients with whiplash injuries get better within a year with little or no treatment, other people appear...

The lower back is a hub for many nerves, including sciatic nerves, the largest nerves in the body. Two sciatic nerves -- each as big around as a finger -- run from the bottom of the spine, through the buttocks, and down each leg. If anything presses against one of the nerves, you will feel the pain of sciatica. Sciatica comes in many different guises. Some people experience a mild pins-and-needle...

Anyone who has spent time with children knows that some of them can bend themselves into positions that defy logic. A teenager may think nothing of dropping into full splits in front of the television. A child with extra flexibility may love impressing her friends by bending her thumb all the way back to her wrist. Dexterity is a good thing. But it can go too far, even in kids. Children and teena...

Most people think of headaches as an adult problem, but kids can get them too. Often, childhood headaches are just temporary symptoms of a cold, flu, or an an infection of the sinuses, eyes, or ears. But like adults, some children can get tension headaches, migraines, or other recurring type of head pain. If your child has mild headaches every once in awhile but seems otherwise healthy, there's no...

On the Internet and around the water cooler, you're likely to hear stories claiming that eating a certain food or eliminating one kind of food from your diet can change your quality of life. Except in rare cases of food allergy or intolerance, there's no concrete evidence that a simple change in diet can, say, banish chronic pain for good. Researchers have found, however, that eating particular fo...

Terrence Auyeung wasn't prepared for the unexpected during the morning commute to his Redwood City, California, office. But suddenly his Subaru began to fishtail on a winding mountain road, and he narrowly avoided skidding off a steep hill. It was a close call, and Auyeung counted his blessings. Three days later, however, he began feeling excruciating shoulder pain, probably from slamming into the...

If you've ever watched a nurse take a blood sample from a newborn's heel, you already know that even the youngest children can feel pain. Babies and toddlers may not always be able to put their feelings into words, but their pain is real. According to a report from Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children, young children may be even more sensitive to pain than adults. Pain relief can be elusive at an...

According to the American Pain Foundation, more than 50 million Americans live with chronic pain, yet it is often undertreated, improperly treated, or not treated at all. The group's 2006 patient survey found that 60 percent experienced breakthrough pain -- brief, severe flare-ups of pain in people who are taking pain medicine regularly -- one or more times a day. Disturbingly, more than three out...

Eight years ago, Peggie Riechard's future looked promising: She loved her job as a computer programmer, and was moving into a new apartment in St. Louis, Missouri. When she injured her left foot during the move, it seemed like a minor setback -- a stress fracture at worst. But her foot continued to swell and ache, and even brushing it against the bedsheets produced excruciating pain. After five pu...

Like many other things in life, pain discriminates by gender. Women, studies show, feel pain more intensely than men, suffer disproportionately from conditions like chronic pain and migraines, and are more likely to be undertreated for pain than men. More pain, no gain More than 70 percent of people who report suffering chronic pain are women, according to a 2003 report in the journal Obstetrics a...

It was only a couple of weeks after Christian Bagge came home from the war in Iraq that the torment began. Lying in his hospital bed at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Bagge suddenly felt a crushing pain in his feet. His feet, however, were not there. After the 23-year-old National Guard soldier's unit was hit by two bombs on an Iraqi road in June 2005, Bagge woke up in a military hospi...

In August 2006, Noemi Johansson-Miller discovered that falling off a tractor can really hurt. In the following months, she learned that recovery can hurt even more. Johansson-Miller, a recent college graduate now living in San Francisco, broke her kneecap in the fall. Two weeks after surgery, she had her first physical therapy session, a grueling round of stretching exercises to improve the streng...

Not long ago, the number one treatment for chronic back pain was rest and more rest. Today, people are more active in the recovery process -- and open-minded about the methods used. While a few days of rest are a key step in recovering from pain and injury, modern medicine emphasizes getting back in motion sooner rather than later. This "use it or lose it" approach is right in line with yoga, an a...

Ever since aspirin hit the market in the late 1800s, it has been a fixture in medicine cabinets everywhere -- and for good reason. It erases headaches, soothes arthritis, lowers fevers, helps prevent heart disease, and may even ward off some types of cancer. If it were discovered today, doctors would hail it as a medical breakthrough. But for some people, aspirin has a serious downside -- especial...

It's wise to pay attention to pain. That throbbing in your knee could be telling you to go easy on the yard work, and that ache in your head might be your body's plea for a nap or a tall glass of water. Some types of pain may even be a sign that you need to get to a hospital immediately. "People have to make a judgment call for themselves, whether they're going to go to an emergency room or make a...

More than 50 million men, women, and children in the United States live with chronic pain every day. Finding a health-care provider who is knowledgeable about pain -- its causes and treatments -- can help you get the treatment you need to go about your daily life with less discomfort. Remember that you are the expert on your pain, so you should be an active participant in developing a plan to mana...

Annie Nakao thought she'd sailed right through her arthroscopic knee surgery. She came home from the operation that evening feeling fine, elated in fact, that her knee wasn't hurting. The former journalist called all her friends to tell them how great she felt, then dozed off without taking the prescription painkiller her doctor had given her. The next morning, Nakao's good mood was rudely shatter...

If you've ever developed a burning, aching pain in your elbow after playing too many rounds of tennis, or shooting pains and weakness in your hands after spending weeks glued to the computer while crashing on a project, you've probably experienced the early stages of repetitive stress injury (RSI). A form of overuse injury caused by repeating the same motions for hours on end over extended periods...

If you're a senior with a chronic condition such as arthritis, most days start with an ache. Your joints hurt as you crawl out of bed. Each movement sends a shooting pain through your back and/or hip. Even a relaxing walk is out of the question, because your feet are too sore. You may, in fact, feel like Marilyn Prater, 73, who was unable to return to work as an office manager in her 60's after an...

Eighty percent of Americans will experience low back pain at some point in their lives. One sure way to end up with an aching back is to lift something the wrong way. Do you know how to lift a squirming toddler? How about a heavy package that arrives at your door? Take this quiz and see how much you know about lifting. 1. Before you lift something, you should test to see how heavy it is by pushi...

It all starts when you slip on a sidewalk, try to lift a child, or bend down to pick up a newspaper. But where does it end? According to the Mayo Clinic, four out of five adults suffer from back pain at some point in their lives. The good news is that the pain almost always fades quickly, especially for people who know how to take care of their backs. How much do you know about coping with back pa...

Ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba ) is the only remaining member of a family of trees that flourished centuries ago in ancient China. Dubbed a living fossil, ginkgo today thrives worldwide in parks and gardens, and in plantations where leaves of carefully pruned ginkgo shrubs are harvested and processed into supplements. Although the people of China have been using the fruits and seeds since 2800 BC, only dur...