Chronic Pain Alternatives - News and Info

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You don't have time to wade through the latest research on chronic pain. Lucky for you, we do! We keep track of everything that's happening in the world of alternative and mainstream treatment of chronic pain, and summarize it in "real people" language so it becomes news you can use.

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Isometrics and Pain Tolerance

There is a lot of medical evidence that aerobic exercise can raise a person's pain threshold.

Unfortunately, many people with chronic pain are not able to exercise at a high enough intensity to trigger those effects.

Isometric exercises are a totally different type of exercise, in which the muscle is contracted without movement. If you put your hands against a wall and push, tensing the muscles, then you're doing and isometric exercise.

Isometrics are not as hard on joints and can be tailored to each person's individual capacity.

A recent study done at the University of Wisconsin in Madison looked at whether short isometric exercises of moderate intensity would increase tolerance to pain. They had young women squeeze their hands at about 50% of maximum for two minutes, then measured their sensitivity to pain.

Pain thresholds increased significantly after isometric exercise. If the pain stimulus was provided before the isometric exercise, then doing then exercises decreased the ratings of pain.

Cautions: This is a limited study done with healthy people. However, it does show that it does not take much exercise to have some impact on pain threshold.

Take Away Information: If you are able to do moderate to high intensity aerobic exercise, isometric exercise may provide some benefit in terms of increasing your tolerance to pain.

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Qigong and Exercise Therapy for Neck Pain

Qigong is a Chinese therapy that uses a combination of slow movements, breathing exercises and meditation to help restore or maintain a balance between the body and the mind.

In a recent study, people with long-term neck pain went through either a Qigong program or an exercise therapy program that incorporated stretching, strenghening and endurance training.

They continued in their programs for a period of 12 weeks.

At the end of the 12 weeks, both groups showed significant improvement in both neck pain and in range of motion of the neck.

There was no difference between the qigong group and the exercise therapy group, suggesting it doesn't matter exactly what type of exercise you use, but that you consistently follow some type of exercise plan.

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