Franklin Pain and Wellness Center

Back pain, neck pain, and headaches are three common pain conditions that affect millions of Americans every day. About 116 million people suffer from chronic pain, with 27% of pain sufferers complaining of low back pain, 15% headache or migraine, and another 15% neck pain.

Some of this pain is the result of chronic underlying medical conditions, and requires pain treatment. But in some cases, you can manage pain by taking a few simple steps in your daily life.

Posture

If you could do just one thing to lessen the amount of pain you experience daily, it would be to improve your posture.

The average person slumps forward over their pelvis. This puts a lot of strain on the lumbar spine and can add to low back pain. We also tend to sit with our arms and head extended forward. That stretches the posterior structures of the back and can cause muscle tightness in the shoulders and neck. The forward positioning of the head can also lead to headaches.

So how should you be sitting? You can set up your work station for a pain-reducing posture. Some tips:

• Don’t work on a laptop.
• Set up your monitor so that you’re looking not straight ahead, but just about 10 degrees down from straight. “You shouldn’t be leaning and rounding forward.
• Add a footrest beneath your desk. “You want your ankles to be slightly flexed. This realigns your entire lower body, putting more weight onto your hips and less on your back.

Take a few minutes every hour to stand up and stretch, or even just lie flat on your back behind your desk.

Sleep

More than one-third of all adults -- 39% -- get less than 7 hours of sleep each weeknight. That may also be part of why so many of us are so achy.

During sleep the body heals. When you’re not falling into REM sleep or limiting that type of sleep, you tend to be clumsier and your muscles aren’t as quick and resilient. So if you’re not getting enough REM sleep, your potential for injury increases, and decreases your ability to heal from an existing injury.

There are many culprits behind sleep problems, from sleep apnea to wakeful children to work stress. But if you are not getting enough sleep at night take a look at two things: your mattress and your sleep position, you can also experiment with pillows.

If you suffer from chronic pain or pain from an underlying medical condition, contact Franklin Pain and Wellness Center.

Original article WebMD

Pain specialists are doctors who treat pain, they specialize in pain medicine. Pain medicine is a medical specialty that focuses on the evaluation, treatment, and prevention of pain.

Pain Specialists are experts at diagnosing the reasons and sources of pain and then treating that specific pain. Anesthesiologists usually specialize in pain management. This makes sense; this is the field that has the most experience managing pain during labor or surgery.

There are different types of pain and most have become treatable through medications, nerve blocks, physical therapy, electrical stimulations, surgery, and psychological support. Although drug dependency is a common worry, at Franklin Pain and Wellness Center we only use non-habit forming treatments and drug recommendations.

Research has led to the development of newer, more effective treatments for people who have pain. Methods and treatments have been developed to minimize or eradicate chronic pain such as lower back; neck; headaches; post herpetic neuralgia (shingles); reflex sympathetic dystrophy (RSD); maxillofacial pain and other chronic ailments.

Contact the Franklin Pain and Wellness Center for information or to book your consultation.