Approximately 100 million people live with chronic pain in US and for half of them pain is really impacting their life. The mechanisms of chronic pain are much more complicated than most people realize. This is just a general diagram of the pain network. Everybody has a personal pain experience because of the individual variations at so many levels.
Currently, our medical system is focused on medications and procedures. The success is not that great since these treatments do not address the underlying problems. I think a better way is to address the whole person and try to calm down these vicious cycles started by acute pain (increased muscle tone, hyper-reactivity of the autonomic nervous system/endocrine system, increased inflammation) and change the processing of information in the central nervous system (spinal cord and brain). For each potential pain treatment we should look at how it influences the following four final goals:
- decrease sensitization in the central nervous system
- decrease inflammation in the periphery and central nervous system
- improve self healing/homeostasis
- improve muscle activity and decrease joint load
Current medications and procedures almost do not accomplish any of these goals. What actually works is the good old wellness measures. The four areas essential for our well being are: nutrition (fasting seems to be a very potent treatment), physical exercise, sleep (really undervalued today) and mental health/spirituality. Just think about fasting and sleep. Both are free resources and both work on all the four goals above. If you are suffering from chronic pain and consider fasting please discuss this with your medical provider since it can affect other medical conditions.