Latest / Heartwise / HW 2026-09-10 Chronic Pain Part 1 - Michael Bell

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HW 2026-09-10 Chronic Pain Part 1 - Michael Bell · Heartwise

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  Speaker 1: This is HeartWise, offering practical tips and time-proven guidelines to
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  Speaker 1: make your life healthier, happier, and more fulfilling. Today you'll
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: learn simple Bible-based principles for building and maintaining optimum mental
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  Speaker 1: and physical health, all while deepening your relationship with your Creator.
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  Speaker 1: Here's your HeartWise host, Dr. James Markham.
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  Speaker 2: Welcome everybody. We're going to talk about topic that unfortunately
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  Speaker 2: is affecting about 50 million Americans, and that's the topic
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  Speaker 2: of pain. And I hope no one out there is
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  Speaker 2: having chronic pain, but that's what we're going to talk
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  Speaker 2: about there. We recently did a television program on chronic pain,
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  Speaker 2: and I realized how important it was to get information
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  Speaker 2: out to pain sufferers all over about different options they
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  Speaker 2: might have, and also to give them hope if you
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  Speaker 2: might be one of the one in four, one in
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  Speaker 2: five that are suffering for chronic pain. And joining me
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  Speaker 2: today is the head of television and radio operations here
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  Speaker 2: at HeartWise, Michael Bell. And Michael, you were telling me
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  Speaker 2: about some pain you inflicted on Nick Evanson recently. Can
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  Speaker 2: you tell us about that?
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  Speaker 3: Oh, Nick and I like to mountain bike, and the
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  Speaker 3: other day we went out and rode about 10 miles.
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  Speaker 3: And in Nick's defense, he wasn't feeling the greatest when
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  Speaker 3: he started riding, but by the end he was pretty tired.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, but did he have, was it more mental pain
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  Speaker 2: or more physical pain, do you think?
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  Speaker 3: I think it was both types of pain because mentally
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  Speaker 3: he was run down, hadn't been getting enough sleep, he'd
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  Speaker 3: been sick. And then physical pain, well, I definitely brought
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  Speaker 3: some of that.
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  Speaker 2: And then after the race, he's probably still having some pain.
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  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah. Yeah, you know, you cramp up and, you know,
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  Speaker 3: it takes some time to get over something like that.
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  Speaker 2: And I think that's a very important point to make
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  Speaker 2: regarding pain. Not only there's physical pain, but there's a
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  Speaker 2: mental component, you know, and he's probably going to be suffering,
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  Speaker 2: thinking every day about that race he lost. That's going
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  Speaker 2: to cause him some amount of physical pain, probably for
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  Speaker 2: a long time. But we're going to talk about some
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  Speaker 2: ways that might help people that are having mental pain
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  Speaker 2: and physical pain, maybe do better ways to cope with it.
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  Speaker 2: And what we've done is we've collected questions that have
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  Speaker 2: come into our website at heartwiseministries.org. And if you have
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  Speaker 2: a question regarding chronic pain, we want you to join in.
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  Speaker 2: We have some specialists that work with HeartWise that deal
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  Speaker 2: with this. And Michael, let's go ahead and start answering
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  Speaker 2: some of these questions, because if one person has a question,
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  Speaker 2: lots of people have these questions.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, and we saw that on the television program. We
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  Speaker 3: had call after call after call, people wanting to know
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  Speaker 3: about what they could do about their pain. But actually,
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  Speaker 3: the first question that we have comes in, and it says,
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  Speaker 3: what is chronic pain And how is it diagnosed? People
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  Speaker 3: want to know what is chronic pain, and how is
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  Speaker 3: it treated? How do you know if you actually have
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  Speaker 3: chronic pain or just a normal pain?
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  Speaker 2: Well, any symptom that doesn't feel right could be considered pain,
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  Speaker 2: but most people know what pain feels like. It's an
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  Speaker 2: uncomfortable feeling they have in their body. And when they
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  Speaker 2: have this for three or more months, and they've actually
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  Speaker 2: undergone treatment and it doesn't go away, At that point,
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  Speaker 2: three or more months of undiagnosed pain that will not
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  Speaker 2: go away, the treatment's not helping. At that point, we've
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  Speaker 2: called it chronic pain. And unfortunately, chronic pain is hard
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  Speaker 2: to deal with, both from a medical perspective as well
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  Speaker 2: as a patient perspective, because chronic pain in itself damages
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  Speaker 2: the body further. So if you have a little chronic
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  Speaker 2: pain and it's not treated correctly, it creates a cycle
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  Speaker 2: of adrenaline in the body, Adrenaline is a hormone that
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  Speaker 2: raises your blood pressure, makes inflammation get worse, makes your
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  Speaker 2: blood pressure go up, makes your immune system get bad.
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  Speaker 2: Chronic pain people might not sleep well at night. And
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  Speaker 2: not only these physical chemical changes going on when you
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  Speaker 2: have the diagnosis of chronic pain, but more than that,
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  Speaker 2: your brain tries to cope with it. And some of
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  Speaker 2: these ways that people cope with chronic pain are healthy,
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  Speaker 2: both the physical pain as well as mental pain. Sometimes
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  Speaker 2: it's not healthy. Some not healthy ways that people deal
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  Speaker 2: with chronic pain is alcohol, drugs. Some people just solely
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  Speaker 2: focus on narcotics to deal with chronic pain. Some people, unfortunately,
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  Speaker 2: take their mental pain out on other people. That seems
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  Speaker 2: to help their pain. So chronic pain, that's the real diagnosis.
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  Speaker 2: So it's not like a blood test or anything we measure.
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  Speaker 2: We talk to the patients. We look for anything, for
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  Speaker 2: any pain that goes on for three or more months.
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  Speaker 2: And unfortunately, a lot of people assume that, oh, these
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  Speaker 2: people really don't have pain. That's not true at all.
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  Speaker 2: In fact, the studies have shown that most people with
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  Speaker 2: chronic pain literally do have something wrong.
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  Speaker 3: Well, Dr. Markham, why don't we go back a step?
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  Speaker 3: What is pain? Let's say I am ironing my shirt
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  Speaker 3: and I touch the iron, a hot iron, What happens
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  Speaker 3: in the body to make me think, to make me
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  Speaker 3: pull away from that? What is that? Because that's what
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  Speaker 3: I would think of as regular pain.
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  Speaker 2: Right, and that's a good point, because a lot of
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  Speaker 2: people don't realize what pain is and why it's important. Well,
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  Speaker 2: God gave us senses in our body, and the senses
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  Speaker 2: we get through our nerves. So pain usually is associated
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  Speaker 2: with nerves. So when you have pain, a nerve is
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  Speaker 2: unhappy for whatever reason. Sometimes it's a natural response, like
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  Speaker 2: a burn, and you say, oh, I'm going to pull back,
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  Speaker 2: and you get away from what's damaging the nerve, and
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  Speaker 2: you get better very quickly. But somehow that nerve that's
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  Speaker 2: causing the pain is chronically damaged. Now, if you think
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  Speaker 2: about nerves for a second, well, the big nerve in
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  Speaker 2: the sky is your brain. So the brain can actually
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  Speaker 2: cause pain and be under pain, both mental pain as
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  Speaker 2: well as physical pain, where the nerves come out of
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  Speaker 2: the spinal cord and go to every aspect of your body,
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  Speaker 2: and it can cause problems down there. Now, the nerves
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  Speaker 2: become damaged, they become inflamed. Sometimes these receptors that you're
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  Speaker 2: talking about become turned on all the time. Sometimes we
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  Speaker 2: have these neuropathy-type pains, and that's just like what you said,
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  Speaker 2: a little bit of the nerve being unhappy, and it
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  Speaker 2: causes a discomfort all the time. That feedback from a
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  Speaker 2: peripheral nerve goes back to the central nervous system, and
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  Speaker 2: you're chronically in pain. So the way I think about
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  Speaker 2: these pains is that a nerve, for whatever reason, is
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  Speaker 2: chronically unhappy. Now, if you broke your arm, that nerve
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  Speaker 2: is going to be unhappy, and it says, I broke
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  Speaker 2: my arm. It's going to hurt.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Well, when the healing occurs, the pain hopefully will go away.
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  Speaker 2: For instance, your friend Nick, okay? You know, he had
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  Speaker 2: some musculoskeletal pains. He also had some mental pain from
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  Speaker 2: you beating him so bad. That should heal in time.
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  Speaker 2: You know, if you go and say, listen, it's not
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  Speaker 2: a big deal. You know, we'll race again and you
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  Speaker 2: sort of let him win next time. You know, it's
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  Speaker 2: not a big deal. That pain should heal. However, there's
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  Speaker 2: a lot of hidden pain out there that doesn't heal well.
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  Speaker 2: There's the common, you know, pains that we have all
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  Speaker 2: through our bodies. There are many diagnoses of nerves that
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  Speaker 2: are hurt that we can't diagnose that are causing pain.
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  Speaker 2: And then what makes it worse is the mental pain
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  Speaker 2: that goes with it, because you have chronic pain, and
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  Speaker 2: some people say, oh, no one believes me. I don't
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  Speaker 2: know what to do. And then the brain gets turned on,
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  Speaker 2: which creates this cycle of even more pain, and it
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  Speaker 2: just goes crazy. Now, some pain only originates in the brain.
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  Speaker 2: And it doesn't have an organic basis. The brain can
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  Speaker 2: actually cause pain and transmit it through different parts of
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  Speaker 2: the body as well.
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  Speaker 3: Are you talking about phantom pains here?
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  Speaker 2: Yes, the brain can do phantom pains as all as
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  Speaker 2: there's some diseases like multiple sclerosis. It's the brain that
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  Speaker 2: regulates the pain receptors. firing abnormally, actually causing pain. The
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  Speaker 2: brain says you have pain, so you have pain. Some
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  Speaker 2: people can create visceral pain, even though nothing physically is wrong.
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  Speaker 2: They can create pain. That's like the phantom pains.
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  Speaker 3: I think I've heard or read about on the news
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  Speaker 3: where we have... soldiers that are fighting overseas and they'll
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  Speaker 3: lose an arm or they'll lose a leg and they'll
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  Speaker 3: wake up in the middle of the night having pain
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  Speaker 3: in that lost limb. Is that something like what you're
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  Speaker 3: talking about?
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  Speaker 2: I can testify. I at one time had chronic pain
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  Speaker 2: and I'd hurt my arm and my fingers at one
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  Speaker 2: time and the nerves said, you're in pain. And I
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  Speaker 2: had pain for years and years, but finally my mind
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  Speaker 2: just said, forget it, I'm turning it off. Now I
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  Speaker 2: still have pain if I think about it, but if
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  Speaker 2: I don't think about it, I don't get it. Some people,
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  Speaker 2: you know, we've heard of headaches, chronic headaches. That's another
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  Speaker 2: chronic pain that originates in the brain. So this chronic pain,
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  Speaker 2: you know, I wish it had a lab test that
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  Speaker 2: we could order and we could measure it and turn
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  Speaker 2: it down or up or whatever to deal with the pain,
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  Speaker 2: but it's not that simple. So it really takes a
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  Speaker 2: multidisciplined effect. And we're going to continue to talk about this,
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  Speaker 2: you know, after our break. But unfortunately, Michael, this is
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  Speaker 2: a problem that's affecting more and more people, and there's
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  Speaker 2: not good solutions. That's why everyone's seeking to reach out
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  Speaker 2: for help.
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  Speaker 3: And what did you say, if I came into the
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  Speaker 3: doctor's office and I said I had chronic pain, what
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  Speaker 3: would you do to test me?
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  Speaker 2: Well, the first thing I would do is I would
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  Speaker 2: talk to you, you know, spend a lot of time
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  Speaker 2: talking to you. And then I would see if you
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  Speaker 2: had an organic or a physical cause of pain. And
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  Speaker 2: if I couldn't find, that might include some testing, you know,
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  Speaker 2: looking at nerves and looking at the back, because, you know,
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  Speaker 2: the back's where the nerves come out.
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  Speaker 3: Correct.
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  Speaker 2: You know, see if you had muscle damage. Then more
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  Speaker 2: than that, I would also start talking to you personally.
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  Speaker 2: Is there things that mentally could be causing your pain,
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  Speaker 2: mentally that could be causing stress, mentally that could be
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  Speaker 2: causing inflammation, where when nerves are inflamed, there's not going
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  Speaker 2: to be a lab test that shows us that all
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  Speaker 2: the time. There's EMG tests. We can measure nerve conduction studies.
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  Speaker 2: That gives us a little information about whether the nerves
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  Speaker 2: have been damaged. But this is very hard to make
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  Speaker 2: a diagnosis without talking to someone, and that's where there's
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  Speaker 2: a lot of sharing and interaction. And that's why a
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  Speaker 2: lot of frustration comes on board because it takes a
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  Speaker 2: long time to find these things out. Well, we're about
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  Speaker 2: ready to go to break now. We're going to answer
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  Speaker 2: some more questions after break. I'm here with Michael Bell.
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  Speaker 2: We're talking about chronic pain that affects about 50 million people.
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  Speaker 2: I want everyone to learn about this subject. And if
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: you have a question, go to our website, heartwiseministries.org. We're
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  Speaker 2: going to be right back with more of your questions
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  Speaker 2: after this short break.
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  Speaker 1: In his book, The Ultimate Prescription, now available from Tyndale
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: House Publishers, cardiologist Dr. James Markham writes, I was reading
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: a recent poll of men who were asked who they
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: thought was the most influential male in the world today.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: Number one on the list was Don Draper, a character
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: on a television series. He's not even a real person.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: Number two was Usain Bolt, an Olympic athlete who many
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: believe defines the true spirit of competition. and President Barack
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: Obama slipped in as number three. This is just another
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: example of how the media has the power to create
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: an influential character, market him as an ideal to the world,
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: and affect the minds of a large segment of the population.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: That same media is doing the same thing when it
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: comes to telling us how to build and maintain optimum health. Dr.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: Markham's book, The Ultimate Prescription, is available from Amazon.com and
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: wherever quality books are sold. To learn more about health
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: from a biblical perspective, visit heartwiseministries.org. I'd like to take
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: a moment to invite you to visit the HeartWise Ministries
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: team on the internet. Stop by heartwiseministries.org and discover for
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: yourself that optimum health is not the result of favorable
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: genes or the right combination of pharmaceuticals. No, optimum health
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: is the result of making the right choices each and
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: every moment of each and every day. If you're like me,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: you're probably a little confused about what the media and
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: marketing moguls are feeding us. There are a lot of potions, pills,
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: and promises out there. Some work, some don't, and some
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: are downright dangerous. Whom do you believe? Whom do you trust?
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: Board-certified cardiologist Dr. James Markham, founder-director of HeartWise Ministries, says
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: there is a source of information that can be trusted
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: and followed. That's the Bible, God's owner's manual, as he
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: calls it, for us all. The information you find on heartwiseministries.org
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: is information backed by biblical truth. It can be trusted
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: because God can be trusted. So stop by, won't you?
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: That's heartwiseministries.org.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: I'm Dr. James Markham, and we're talking here about a
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  Speaker 2: very important subject that I think, Michael, it's underappreciated, underestimated,
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: and under-talked about, at least in in our dealings with
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  Speaker 2: our television ministry, we know that people wanna know about
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  Speaker 2: chronic pain. And unfortunately, it's something that doctors and healers
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  Speaker 2: and providers can do much better. So let's get back
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  Speaker 2: and we'll continue to talk about this and answer some
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  Speaker 2: more questions today.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, Dr. Markham, the next question that has come in
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  Speaker 3: to our website, then that's heartwiseministries.org, says, what are the
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  Speaker 3: most common causes of chronic pain?
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  Speaker 2: Okay, now remember we talked about this is pain that
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  Speaker 2: won't go away. After months, months, at least three months
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  Speaker 2: in actual treatment, what are the most common causes? When
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: we think about it, I want to do the framework. Remember,
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  Speaker 2: chronic pain usually comes from nerves, and the brain's the nerve,
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  Speaker 2: your spinal cords are nerves. So the most common cause
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  Speaker 2: of chronic back pain right now is lower back pain, okay?
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  Speaker 2: Lower back pain is usually triggered sometimes by nerves that
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  Speaker 2: leave the spinal canal. You know, we've heard of bulging discs.
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  Speaker 2: You've heard of muscle strains. And unfortunately, in lower back pain,
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  Speaker 2: The tendency is a person gets it, they strain something,
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  Speaker 2: they hurt a nerve. The nerve says, oh, I have pain.
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  Speaker 2: And guess what? They go to a doctor. The doctor
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  Speaker 2: might give them some anti-inflammatories for a while or something
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  Speaker 2: to relieve the spasms or even relieve the pain, a narcotic.
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  Speaker 2: But they don't allow that nerve to heal. Nerves take
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  Speaker 2: longer to heal than other parts of the body. So
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  Speaker 2: guess what? They go back to work. Well, they're not
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  Speaker 2: hurting now because their pain's being masked. And yet the
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  Speaker 2: cause of the pain has not gone away. So they
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  Speaker 2: might keep lifting and pulling and moving things. And guess what?
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  Speaker 2: The pain persists. I send people to have surgery, to
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: have open heart surgery, and they cut through the sternum.
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  Speaker 2: They cut through a lot of nerves. And if a
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  Speaker 2: person gets moving too quick after, those nerves take a
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  Speaker 2: long time to heal. So lower back pain is probably
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  Speaker 2: the most common cause of chronic back pain, either because
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: it's not addressed and it continues to go on and on,
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  Speaker 2: or it's not treated. Another cause of chronic pain is arthritis.
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  Speaker 2: And what arthritis is, is another cause of inflammation. Well,
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  Speaker 2: inflammation is where we have a bunch of cells in
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  Speaker 2: the body that cause inflammation. They're usually white blood cells, leukotrienes,
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: different types of white cells. If you rub your arm
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  Speaker 2: long enough, it's going to get red. Well, if that's
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: happening in your joints all over your body, this swelling
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  Speaker 2: is called arthritis. It usually happens when the body attacks itself.
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  Speaker 2: There's a type of arthritis called rheumatoid arthritis. There's one,
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  Speaker 2: the most common is osteoarthritis. The joints just get older
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  Speaker 2: and there's lots of inflammation. Another common cause of chronic
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  Speaker 2: pain is headaches, migraine headaches. A lot of people have
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: chronic migraine headaches or pains in the brain. Again, another
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  Speaker 2: neurologic-based type pain from your nerves, that pain that just
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: won't go away. There's sometimes migraine, sometimes stress headaches, sometimes
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: they have a month after month. Well, that's one of
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: the more common causes of chronic pain. Another one is
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: called multiple sclerosis. That's a condition in the brain where
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: the brain doesn't work well, and you can have chronic
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: pain where the brain causes all sorts of pain, and
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  Speaker 2: it starts in the central nervous system. Your arm might
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  Speaker 2: be fine, but because the brain's not right, you have
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  Speaker 2: pain going to different parts of the body. Another pain
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  Speaker 2: in the muscles, another inflammatory-type condition in the muscles is
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  Speaker 2: called fibromyalgia. The muscles hurt. The muscles become abnormal. The
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  Speaker 2: nerves sense this, and then you have chronic pain in
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  Speaker 2: the muscles. Another common pain is a pain, everyone's heard
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: of this, called shingles. That's where a virus lives along
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  Speaker 2: a nerve root. And that nerve is unhappy, and it
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  Speaker 2: causes inflammation. The pain doesn't go away. Another cause of
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  Speaker 2: chronic pain is one called neuropathy. That just means the
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  Speaker 2: nerves have been damaged chronically. The most common cause of
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: neuropathy that we see is because diabetes. Diabetes damages the nerve.
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  Speaker 2: The nerve itself is damaged, causes inflammation, chronic pain. Neuropathies
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  Speaker 2: are very, very difficult to treat. And sometimes you can
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  Speaker 2: get at the underlying cause, sometimes you can't.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, Dr. Markham, before we go too much farther, I
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  Speaker 3: know there's lots of different types of chronic pain. I'd
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  Speaker 3: like to talk for a minute on some treatment plans
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: or what you can do for some of these. And
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  Speaker 3: let's start with lower back pain. How is lower back
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  Speaker 3: pain treated and what's generally the outcome?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. Lower back pain, you know, it's a very common
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  Speaker 2: cause of pain. And when I run into someone with
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: lower back pain, the first thing I want to know
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: is whether they have a structural problem that can be treated.
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: Whether they have a bulging disc. Okay.
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: What is a bulging disc?
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: A bulging disc is where you have shock absorbers that
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: help your spinal cord.
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: Okay, that's in between each of the discs.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: And sometimes they become displaced or they move. And remember,
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: the spinal cord is like a big nerve, and then
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: you have sub-nerves that leave that. And when these nerves
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: leave this big canal of the big nerve, sometimes they
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: can get squished. And what happens is this disc, because
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: it's in a bad place, it actually squishes the nerve
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: And when the squint nerve is squished, it has pain
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: wherever that nerve might go. If that nerve goes to
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: the legs, you have leg pain. If it goes to
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: the buttocks, you have butt pains. Some people have nerves
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: that are severed up high, and they might have pain
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: up high. And usually back pain is caused by trauma,
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: repetitive trauma over and over, people lifting or pulling. So
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: first of all, you want to see what the problem
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: is specifically. And a lot of times, unfortunately, You can't
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: see anything major. And it's the nerve downstream that's been damaged,
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: either by a muscle pull or muscle ache. That is
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: a lot harder to treat. So there's many ways to
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: approach this. And first, when there's not structural damage that
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: needs to be fixed, you try to take the pressure
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: off that nerve. Or you try to decrease the inflammation.
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: What are some ways that you can do that? When
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: you said take the pressure off, the first thing I
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: thought of was like an inversion table.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: That's one way people treat chronic pain. And it's depending
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: where the pain's at. But for instance, chiropractors, what they
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: do is they try to relax the muscles by manipulations
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: around the nerve so the nerve relaxes on its own.
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: Because when the nerve is hurting, it's inflamed. A lot
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: of people try to treat the inflammation. And you can
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: settle down inflammation with certain types of medicines. We hear
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: about anti-inflammatories.
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: Like a steroid dose pack?
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: Yes. Well, that can do it sometimes. Sometimes they inject
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: where the nerve is, and that lasts much longer.
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: What's the name of that?
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: The epidural steroids. You can inject it in the epidural space.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: You can inject it along the nerve root. Sometimes they're
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: called nerve blocks. They actually block the pain with usually
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: a steroid as inflammation. You can also inject narcotics for
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: pain control.
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: Now, my wife's a nurse practitioner, and she worked for
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: a spine center, and she was always talking about a
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: facet injection.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: Yes, and that's similar to what we're causing. They inject
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: a medicine where that nerve leaves along the facet, and
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: that blocks the pain. If that blocks the pain and
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: the inflammation, sometimes a nerve can heal on its own.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: Other things that can do it is sometimes physical therapy.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: By getting in a good position, maybe it's posture that's
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: causing this chronic muscle to pull on a nerve. Other
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: things that can help, some people go into things like acupuncture,
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: We have stimulators like TENS units that sort of retrain
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: the nerves, and sometimes that help. We have lots of
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: other natural ways that might help.
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: Okay, let's hear those.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: Sometimes I think the best one is just rest. Sometimes
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: when you have a back problem, the answer is to
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: rest and not get out of bed until things heal.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: If you broke your arm, you wouldn't keep throwing fastballs
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: every day.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: And unfortunately, no one When they hurt themselves, no one
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: really takes the time to rest. They keep walking on
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: that sore foot. They keep using that short back. The guys,
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: they go and they get the anti-inflammatories, they get the
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: pain medicines. Their back feels better, so they think they're healed,
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: but they're really not. So they go back to work,
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: and they even make the situation more worse. So rest
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: is one of the best ones you can do. Certain
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: types of healthy exercises where you can retrain other muscles
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: to take the pressure off the muscles that are causing hydrotherapy, water.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: Both water that you drink is an anti-inflammatory. Sometimes hot
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: water helps release some of the pains involved.
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: All right. Before we get too much farther in here,
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: let's move on to another type of chronic pain here, arthritis.
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: There's a lot of people out there probably listening right
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: now that have arthritis. What are some therapies? What are
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: some ways that they can help or lower their pain
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: from arthritis?
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Now, first of all, I think about, well, arthritis
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: is caused by inflammation. So I think about, well, what's
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: ways that I can lower inflammation?
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: Before we go on to that, how do you have inflammation?
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: Where does inflammation come from? Overuse?
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: Okay. Well, inflammation specifically, there's some type of genetic abnormalities
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: that your body just turns on. We hear things like lupus, arthritis.
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: Sometimes the joints are just old and worn out. And
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: when they're old and worn out, they rub against each other.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: And when they rub against each other, this causes inflammation. Trauma,
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: repeated trauma over a lifetime can cause inflammation. So usually,
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: and you can tell if you have inflammation in your
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: body to feel a joint, to feel if it's warm,
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: to feel if it's hot.
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: It will actually be warm to the touch?
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: Yes, it can be warm to the touch if you
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: have a lot of inflammation. So when there's inflammation, that's
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: why when you sprain your ankle, that's inflammation. It gets warm.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: When you hurt yourself, that's why the body tries to
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: fix it itself. So that's the body trying to repair itself,
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: but it also causes pain because it's inflammation. Triggers these nerves, things,
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: tells you that something's not wrong. So in arthritis pain,
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: the traditional way we've used it to block the inflammation
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: is non-steroidal anti-inflammatories, naproxen, even we see Advil, things like that.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: We used to have something called Vioxx, but it was
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: just now not used anymore. Some people need steroids if
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: it's really, really bad, but steroids come with side effects.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: Sometimes people use stronger immunosuppressants like methotrexate that blocks the
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: immune system. But usually I tell people, well, try some
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: natural things first, like resting your joints, water. Hydrotherapy can help.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: Sometimes eating a healthy diet. We know certain foods cause
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: inflammation and certain foods decrease inflammation. We're going to talk
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: about that a little bit later. So this is a
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: very big topic. And unfortunately, we just touched it today,
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: but we're going to come back again and continue to
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: talk about chronic pain, different treatments, and answer your questions.
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: We want to invite people to go to our website, heartwiseministries.org.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: And if you happen to be one of the millions
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: and millions of people that are suffering for chronic pain.
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: We also want to encourage you to turn to the
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: great physician who can help you with all sorts of
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: pains and help lead you in the place you should go.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: So we want you to join us next time where
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: we're going to continue this discussion on chronic back pain.
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: I'm Dr.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: James Bargum with Dr. Michael Bell. We're going to be
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: back next week. Thanks for joining us.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us today on HeartWise. If you'd
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: like more information on how to build and maintain optimum physical, mental,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: and spiritual health, log on to heartwiseministries.org. HeartWise is a
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: listener-supported program and your partnership with us would be greatly appreciated.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: Once again, our web address is heartwiseministries.org.