Chronic Pain Management and the Role of Diet and Nutrition
Effective chronic pain management can involve both changes in diet and the use of dietary supplements, including vitamins, minerals, enzymes and other substances. Nutritional approaches can be used to help prevent pain, such as migraine headache, or reduce pain and inflammation as part of a comprehensive chronic pain management strategy.
However, a word of caution is in order here. Although nutritional approaches are often perceived to have fewer side effects than many medications, caution should be used as some nutrients are known to be unsafe in certain circumstances, when used with some medications, or at certain doses. The use of these nutritional approaches should be discussed with a knowledgeable healthcare professional.
Up until recently there was a shortage of information and a great deal of misinformation regarding the role of proper nutrition for effective chronic pain management. Recent research studies by the National Fibromyalgia Association (NFA) have confirmed that diet and nutrition play a significant role in the management of pain. The NFA (2006) reports that success relies upon utilizing a multidisciplinary and multidimensional approach, incorporating lifestyle and dietary changes to achieve optimum health and well being.
The NFA also states that nutritional therapy practitioners are successfully using diet to treat and prevent illness, and restore the body to a natural healthy equilibrium. Some healthcare practitioners believe that deficiencies of minerals and vitamins could be responsible for much of the disease and weakness in the body. Examples of conditions resulting from deficiencies include fatigue, lethargy and susceptibility to colds and viruses.
There is also substantial pain management literature emphasizing the importance of nutrition and exercise in the healing process and effective chronic pain management. In fact, Dr. Margaret Caudill (2001) devotes an entire chapter of her book—Managing Your Pain before it Manages You—to nutrition in an effective chronic pain management program.
To learn more about effective chronic pain management check out my article The Need for Multidisciplinary Chronic Pain Management that you can download for free on our Article page.
You can learn more about the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System at our website www.addiction-free.com. If you or a loved one is undergoing chronic pain management, especially if you’re in recovery or believe you may have a medication or other mental health problem and you want to learn more effective chronic pain management tools, please go to our Publications page and check out my books; especially the Addiction-Free Pain Management® Recovery Guide: Managing Pain and Medication in Recovery. To purchase this book please Click Here.
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