MSK Solutions Pain Recovery

Introduction

Before you reach for an over-the-counter or prescription medication to resolve your pain, consider this: what if there was a powerful medicine available that didn’t require a prescription or a trip to the drug store? Your diet, daily movement, and mental outlook can relieve pain, decrease inflammation and help your body heal quickly and completely. The human body has an amazing ability to maintain health when provided with the right signals. Think about it: The choices you make each day send signals to each of your cells that either promote health and healing, or damage and disease. When harmful signals are removed, and appropriate signals are enhanced, cells and organ systems can create healthy outcomes. Your food choices, physical function, and psychology have the greatest impact on your pain, inflammation and quality of life.

Your Future, Your Choice

When we fail to maximize our nutrition, physical function and psychological balance, pain and inflammation can intensify. Blocking that pain and treating symptoms with medication risks dependence, chronic pain and even permanent loss of function. A life of pain leaves you feeling limited and trapped. The MSK Solutions Pain Recovery Program helps you partner with your clinician to experience freedom from pain that goes beyond your symptoms.

Pain and Inflammation 101

Pain is our body’s alarm system; it alerts us when something isn’t right. But how does the alarm get activated? Inflammation is the response of our body’s defense system to protect against infection and rebuild any damaged tissue. The normal inflammatory process activates pain receptors, sending a signal from the injury site to the brain. Your immune system springs into action, signaling immune cells to start walling off the injured area. New cells will then use collagen and glycoproteins to create new tissue. Finally, new collagen forms scar tissue, healing the wound.

The Principles of the MSK Solutions Pain Recovery Program

Healing of injured musculoskeletal tissues occurs in three phases:

1. The acute inflammatory phase makes up the first 72 hours of an injury. During this phase, initial swelling and inflammation affects the injured tissues, and tissue repair is limited. Due to the increased inflammation, the first few days following an injury are often the most painful.

2. The regeneration phase is the longest phase of healing, lasting six to eight weeks. After the 72-hour mark, damaged tissues begin to be repaired. Repair is initiated by cells called fibroblasts brought in during the acute inflammatory phase. During the regeneration phase, the injured muscles and ligaments is rejoined and linked. When this phase of healing is complete, about 90% of damaged tissue is repaired.

3. The final phase of healing is called the remodeling phase. During this phase, the collagen protein glues laid down for repair in the previous phase are remodeled in the direction of stress and strain. Fibers in the tissue become stronger, and their pattern begins to look like that of the original, undamaged tissue. In this phase, regular movement helps properly remodel and realign the new tissue.

For most people experiencing an acute pain event, acute pain and inflammation usually resolves in a matter of days or weeks, but can last up to three months. At the three-month mark, damaged tissue should have undergone full healing and tissue regeneration, and be well into the remodeling phase. The inflammatory process should be completely resolved and no longer causing swelling or pain seen in the first few weeks of injury.

Chronic pain, unlike acute pain, is a false alarm. In general, pain that persists beyond three months is considered chronic; however, no tissue repair needs to take place. The cause of chronic pain starts with a change in how the nervous system interprets signals, and that transition may begin when inflammation fails to resolve, and all phases of tissue healing fails to be completed. While inflammation in an acute situation is beneficial and essential for proper healing, chronic inflammation can become destructive to joints and connective tissues, leading to more pain. Certain factors, including unhealthy dietary and lifestyle choices, perpetuate inflammation, prolong tissue healing, and fail to shut off the pain signal in the body. Over time the nervous system begins to misinterpret the signals. The nervous system becomes extremely sensitive, and reacts to stimuli that normally doesn’t trigger a pain response.

The Healing Matrix

The latest research on pain management shows three areas need to be addressed simultaneously to relieve your pain quickly, allow your body to fully heal, and prevent your pain from coming back. Your body must be balanced physically, nutritionally and psychologically to maximize the healing process. This multi-faceted approach is the Healing Matrix.

Nutritional

Nutrition is what your body uses to create and repair muscle, joints, connective tissue and bones. Nutrition can also play a role in either feeding or resolving inflammation and contributing to pain. Diet, supplements and good bacterial balance can help with digestion and absorption, and ensure your body is eliminating harmful waste products that can accumulate during inflammation and the healing process. Consider your environment as a nutritive source, and avoid or reduce toxin exposures like smoking, environmental pollutants, and harmful chemicals. Reading labels on skin care products is as important to your health as reading food labels. Using natural, organic skin care products, cosmetics, detergents, and cleaning products will significantly reduce your exposure to harmful, pro-inflammatory and often carcinogenic chemicals.

Physical

The physical structure of your body allows it to function properly. When movement is altered, improper weight is put on cartilage, tendons, ligaments, muscles and bones. Over time, this mechanical stress can lead to structural breakdown. Allowing mechanical stress to be distributed evenly, and on structures that are designed to absorb and distribute force properly, ensures optimal function and movement. Using chiropractic care, physical therapy, acupuncture, massage therapy, personal training and an exercise routine will allow you to maximize your body’s physical function.

Regular exercise can also contribute to reducing inflammation. Fat cells in your body produce and secrete inflammatory compounds. Abdominal fat cells produce and secrete these compounds at even higher levels, resulting in a strong inflammatory response for those that have accumulated extra belly fat. Engaging in regular, cardiovascular activity (at least four days per week) can help you burn up extra fat and reverse this inflammatory process.

Regular physical activity and daily exercise are one of the most important steps you can take to reduce your risk for pain and inflammation. Studies indicate risk for chronic pain is much higher for inactive people compared to active.

Exercise and Inflammation

Research shows that both daily exercise and physical activity are essential for maximum health. For example, exercising one hour a day does not undo the negative effects of sitting for eight hours a day. Movement is a key way our bodies accomplish goals both visible and invisible.

Psychological

The mind influences pain levels, and pain can cause psychological distress. Psychologically, the experience of pain itself can rewire the brain over long periods of time to begin to perceive harmless stimuli as painful. Research has shown that those with a more hopeful outlook heal faster than those with less optimism. Decreasing stress and getting seven to nine hours of quality sleep are key components to allowing the body to heal and maintaining a hopeful outlook. Having a support network in friends and family and through other organizations can encourage you to cope with pain in a healthier way. It’s important to stay connected and remain hopeful during the healing process. In some circumstances, a mental health professional may provide additional help.

Practicing daily gratitude and mindfulness are easy, controllable ways to decrease your stress and keep a hopeful outlook. Proper sleep hygiene is also key, and putting down your cell phone or tablet at least one hour before bed removes harmful blue light exposure that interrupts brain waves and keeps you from feeling rested and refreshed.

How Stress Causes Pain

The stress system’s fight-or-flight response is an essential instinct for survival, but when the biological triggers that prompt the body to respond to potential threats fall out of alignment, a reduction in our mental ability to cope with daily stress can occur. This results in low mood, anxiety, irritation and an inability to focus.

Stress combined with an overactive HPA axis has been implicated in contributing to a wide variety of mental health problems, and can further perpetuate pain and inflammation if left unchecked. Stress causes the adrenals to produce elevated levels of cortisol resulting in a sequence of changes in the brain that affect mood and memory. When stress levels are high, fight-or-flight chemicals epinephrine (adrenaline) and norepinephrine are also released, resulting in a heightened sense of alertness. This state of hyper-vigilance leads to anxiety and restlessness.

When you experience overwhelming levels of stress, the brain naturally releases mood-regulating and calming neurotransmitters, such as serotonin and GABA, to help you cope. However, prolonged stress can result in a depletion of these relaxing neurotransmitters. Stress also increases the excretion rate of crucial vitamins out of the body, including vitamins C, B-complex and magnesium, which are essential not only for maintaining adrenal health, but also brain health.

Chronic stress can significantly increase inflammation in the body, leading to cell damage, insulin resistance and increased risks for cardiometabolic disease. Stress indirectly causes additional risks. During stressful periods, we often engage in unhealthy coping strategies such as overindulging in junk food, smoking or drinking excessive amounts of alcohol. Additionally, stress can interfere with our routine healthy habits such as exercise, sleep and healthy meal preparation. It is unreasonable to reduce all types of stress. Often, the goal of stress management is to view the stress trigger differently or change the situation and reduce the impact of stress on you. Stress is a contributor to almost 90% of all diseases, so reducing your stress level is a powerful step in improving your overall health.

Pain and Sleep

Adequate sleep is necessary for long-term health and regeneration. Many of the body’s repair processes occur during the deep, slow-wave stages of sleep. Skin and other connective tissues regenerate themselves during the sleep cycle. Research shows that those with less sleep had a predictably higher pain level than those with eight hours of sleep. Lack of sleep can cause or exacerbate pain.

Sleep also functions as an “antioxidant” for the brain because free radicals are removed during the sleep cycle. Sleep is required to ensure minimal neuronal damage occurs from free radicals accumulated throughout the day. This explains why even one night of bad sleep can leave you feeling tired, irritated and unable to focus.

You know all too well that chronic pain is devastating. It can affect your quality of life and keep you from activities that you enjoy. You’ve come to the right place. Your clinician understands that pain can be complex and requires more than a medication to resolve. Your clinician has integrated the MSK Solutions Program that will relieve your pain quickly and they will partner with you to maintain those results. You and your clinician will work with your body to enhance its natural ability to heal. Your clinician uses the latest evidence-based approaches to heal your body in three key ways: physically, nutritionally and psychologically. The latest research in pain management shows that a comprehensive approach to pain produces lasting outcomes and fast pain relief, and prevents the risk of your pain coming back.