What to do if you are in pain?
Tatiana Bateneva, "News of Science"A scientific conference "Together against Pain" was held in St. Petersburg.
The conference was timed to coincide with the opening of the country's first pain treatment rooms. By the end of the month, as many as three will be opened in the Northern Capital. And then in all major cities of Russia, and in Moscow.
Why did our doctors suddenly start treating pain? Or have we never had any pain before?
Come into the office
From the school course of anatomy, we are taught that pain is a signal about some kind of trouble, a disease that the body sends to us. But modern medicine considers pain to be an independent disease and pays special attention to it. After all, the pain can persist for a long time even after the disease is cured or the cause of the pain is eliminated.
And then we drink handfuls of painkillers or go to different doctors. Most often, as statistics show, these are therapists. In most cases, they do not have special knowledge in the treatment of pain and send the patient to "narrow" specialists: neurologist, surgeon, cardiologist, etc. You can walk in circles indefinitely...
Until now, such a clinic was only in Moscow – it was founded by the famous neurologist Professor Alexander Vane. The clinic is commercial, but the pain treatment rooms are free, you can be treated here under a compulsory medical insurance policy. They are opened at leading medical institutions – the St. Petersburg Medical Academy of Postgraduate Education, St. Petersburg State Medical University. Pavlov and the Military Medical Academy named after Kirov. Then they will open in Moscow and other major cities.
In fact, the new offices are not just offices, they will be real medical centers. Many types of pain will be treated there – headache, facial, joint, back pain, muscle pain, etc. That is, it will be possible to treat any pain, undergo an examination, get a doctor's recommendation. The entire medical arsenal will be used: medicines, physiotherapy, manual therapy, massages, etc. Experts believe that this will relieve the general medical network and help thousands of people cope with pain, which sometimes torments them for years.
How many of us sufferers are there?
For different types of pain – from 14 to 57%. On average, about 34 cases per 100 people. Joints most often hurt – in our country, more than 22 million people suffer from diseases of the musculoskeletal system. About 8.5 million more people suffer from pain associated with the nervous system – head, spinal, pelvic, etc.
According to Tigran Lalayan, head of the Neurology Department of the St. Petersburg Medical Academy of Postgraduate Education, all Russians over the age of 25 have experienced spine-related pain at least once in their lives. Haven't you ever had to bend over somehow unsuccessfully to find that you are not able to straighten up? That's what it is.
Where, how and what hurts
There are a great many varieties of pain. Patients describe it as sharp and dull, burning and twitching, spotty and spilled, tolerable and unbearable... For a doctor, all these characteristics are very important – they help to make a diagnosis.
The headache alone has up to a dozen different causes, and accordingly the treatment should be different. So, migraine is different from tension pains, pain caused by increased or decreased intracranial pressure is different from the so-called "Horton" pain (acute pain around the eye, giving to the temple and the back of the head), which almost exclusively affects men. And there is also pain after a concussion, there is a cervical headache, there is pain associated with visual impairments, vascular spasms and even pain that occurs against the background of neurasthenia...
Neurologist's advice
"What should I do if you are in pain?"
Recommended by Candidate of Medical Sciences Tigran Lalayan
1. If the pain bothers you not for the first time and does not go away by itself, but lasts long enough, do not self–medicate - first you need to find out the reason.
2. Do not drink painkillers for a long time and uncontrollably. There are a lot of them now, they all act differently, on different pain mechanisms and different organs, all have side effects. Pills can cure one thing, and cause irreparable harm to another.
3. Do not hesitate to contact a specialist with pain – even if there are no other symptoms. With pain, you can consult a neurologist, a surgeon. You can come for a consultation at the Department of Neurology of a medical university.
4. If you have something that hurts, first of all, provide the sore spot and yourself, your beloved, peace. Lie down, turn off the lights, close the windows. If your head or back hurts, this is especially important. There is a myth that with back pain, you definitely need to lie down on a hard surface – this is not true. The bed should not be hard or soft, but medium.
5. For pain, you can also use folk remedies – rubbing, compresses, herbs, if you believe in them. There is a very large component of the psychological state in the phenomenon of pain. But do not forget the basic rule of medicine – "Do no harm!". If after lapping and tethered burdock, the condition has not improved, but worsened – by running or crawling, but to the doctor!
My back is falling off
Pain in the spine, alas, is familiar to everyone. The reasons for them may also be different. Doctors often say that osteochondrosis, osteoarthritis, curvature of the spine, its injuries are the reckoning of humanity for the happiness of walking upright. After all, animals do not have such problems.
But in fact, many of us have back pain not from walking upright, but from sitting upright! It turns out that the load on the spine arises not only from lifting weights or heavy physical work – from many hours of sedentary life.
If you are at work all day sitting at the table or at the conveyor, make it a rule to take a break every hour. Get up, stretch out, walk around, perform several bends and squats. Just don't make any sudden movements – everything should be soft and smooth. This will benefit both the vessels, and the head, and the back.
Doctors advise young people to strengthen the muscular corset in every possible way – after all, the muscles provide the correct position of the spine. We have as many as 140 of them on our back! Without constant training, they become flabby, cease to guard the spine, and it splints in different directions. So long live physical education!
If you have already unsuponized your corset, the diagnosis is already there and the back pain has become chronic, you should think about either changing your job or changing your working position. There are chairs, sitting on which you can transfer the center of gravity and lean on your knees. You can work at a high desk. Of course, it would be nice to lie down, but our employers have not yet reached this point. But in vain. After all, they have more than enough back problems.
Muscles groan
Most often (up to 80%) the cause of pain is muscle spasm. They arise in different ways: due to too zealous training in the gym, hard work, a long uncomfortable pose, a bad bed or pillow, poorly chosen shoes, hypothermia, even just an awkward movement.
Sometimes you can feel particularly painful seals in the muscles, the so-called trigger zones. These are places of concentration of nerve impulses coming from suffering internal organs. With such a spasm, less oxygen enters the muscle, and it literally suffocates, which causes pain. In addition, the pain itself increases the spasm – there is an enchanted circle. From here, the pain gives off in different directions.
Massage therapists and chiropractors are good at finding these areas. When you touch such points, you are literally burned with acute pain. But after skilled manipulations, relief is immediately felt.
And where is your center of gravity?
The condition of the spine largely depends on the weight – the larger it is, the higher the load on the back. Moreover, the location of fat deposits is also of great importance. So, obese people with a large belly have problems with the spine much more often. The reason is that because of the belly, which pulls the body forward, a person is forced to find balance, deviating when walking backwards. The center of gravity of the body shifts, and then the position of the vertebrae relative to each other.
Women with extreme bust may have the same problems. Treatment is also possible here: firstly, it is worth losing weight, and secondly, plastic surgery is at the service of ladies.
Portal "Eternal youth" www.vechnayamolodost.ru28.05.2008