Exercise Combats Fort Wayne Chronic Pain and Related Distress
Do you experience chronic pain? You aren’t alone! Chronic pain can influence the mind and the body. Over 80% of retired NFL football players reported having pain daily. A recent questionnaire study of them noted that the greater the pain acceptance, the lower the pain intensity they experienced. (1) Accepting pain is a challenge though! Fortunately, study after study shows that some optimism and physical activity improves pain and optimism. For these and more reasons, Aaron Chiropractic Clinic incorporates exercise into our chronic back pain patients’ Fort Wayne chiropractic treatment plans!
EXERCISE: GOOD FOR BODY AND MIND
Exercise benefits extend beyond the physical body improvements. Exercise also enhances the mind and outlook of a person in pain, especially one who has chronic low back pain. At the end of a 3-month study of chronic low back pain patients who either exercised or didn’t, researchers documented that pain disability scores in the exercisers decreased significantly more. In both groups, lowered pain scores connected to higher self-efficacy scores (feelings of independence). Chronic low back pain exercisers’ improved disability reflected a beneficial influence on increased self-efficacy and pain relief. (2) Another study of 72 patients before treatment for their chronic pain and after 3 months of treatment reported that improved self-efficacy was linked to lowered disability whether they felt any reduction of pain intensity. They concluded that helping chronic pain patients improve their sense of self-efficacy could be a good way to help chronic pain patients cope with pain in addition to just relieving their pain. (3)
OPTIMISM FOR A BETTER, LESS PAINFUL DAY
And an optimistic attitude toward pain can help! Fear-avoidance is a common problem for patients with pain. They don’t want to do anything to provoke their pain and exacerbate pain which leads them to move less and have less optimism for ever being without pain. Research indicated that patients with longer episodes of pain who expressed greater self-efficacy and patients with higher pain disability and depression had lower self-efficacy. (4) Knowing this, we support our Fort Wayne pain patients to be active and keep living life! ’Better’ is just around the corner!
EXERCISE: Time to Move!
And we all know it: physical inactivity and sedentary lifestyle are not beneficial for us. Researchers go so far as to write that they are associated with chronic musculoskeletal pain and can even exacerbate it! What’s the solution? Physical exercise, of course. Researchers pointed out in a new study that exercise programs combining a variety of forms of exercise – flexibility, balance, aerobic, strengthening – tend to be better. Such arrangements are also more adaptable to a particular patient’s issues. Light-to-moderate intensity exercise done two to three times a week for a month were found to be of greatest benefit for chronic pain patients particularly for those with spine pain conditions like chronic low back pain, osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, and fibromyalgia. (5) Aaron Chiropractic Clinic designs a strategy specially for each Fort Wayne chiropractic patient.
CONTACT Aaron Chiropractic Clinic
Listen to this PODCAST with Dr. Kelly Brinkman on The Back Doctors Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson as she shares the effectiveness of the gentle protocols of The Cox® Technic System of Spinal Pain Management in treating chronic back pain.
Make your Fort Wayne chiropractic appointment today. Whether you are a retired NFL player or NFL fan or neither of these, bring your chronic pain and worried mind to Aaron Chiropractic Clinic. We’ll work together to reduce pain and fear of pain and increase your sense of independence and joy of life with chiropractic and exercise!
