Participants: Nick Evenson (Host), Dr. James Marcum
Series Code: UP
Program Code: UP000071A
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00:16 So many in the world today are experiencing pain,
00:18 both physical and mental. 00:20 We're going to talk about pain and give suggestions 00:23 to help those experiencing it. Stay with us... 00:26 I'm Dr. James Marcum... 00:27 Are you interested in discovering the reason why? 00:31 Do you want solutions to your healthcare problem? 00:34 Are you tired of taking medications? 00:36 Well, you're about to be given "The Ultimate Prescription" 00:43 I'm Nick Evenson, thank you for joining us today. 00:45 You know, so many people are experiencing chronic pain. 00:48 Dr. Marcum, what do our viewers need to know about pain? 00:51 Yeah Nick, and the whole world is full of pain now and it just 00:56 breaks my heart when I see so many people in pain. 00:58 Just, you know, to think of all different types of pain. 01:02 Back pain - that's a big deal! 01:04 And right now, in the United States, 1 in 5 people 01:08 have back pain - about 20% have back pain. 01:12 And of those who have back pain, 01:13 1 in 10 become disabled. 01:17 And some for people that have back pain... 01:19 it becomes a lifetime problem. 01:22 But not only back pain, there are pains 01:24 from all different other parts of the body. 01:26 There's mental pain that happens. Sure 01:29 There are pains in our legs, in different parts of our body. 01:33 There's arthritis-type pain. 01:36 Pain is a major issue in our society and when I think about 01:41 pain in an approach to pain, the first thing we want 01:43 to think about is - well what causes the pain? 01:47 If we can understand what causes the pain, 01:50 maybe we have a chance to heal the pain. 01:53 And there are some things that we can do naturally 01:55 to help with pain. 01:57 There are some things we can do mentally to help with pain. 02:00 And what I try to do first in an approach to a person with 02:04 chronic pain is we try to let them know... 02:07 there's help available and let's try to limit 02:11 the exposure to pain pills, if we can. Sure 02:15 Unfortunately, chronic narcotics are a big problem, 02:19 and some people get on these medications and they never 02:22 get off these medications, and they're addictive, 02:25 and they take more and more of them, 02:27 and before they know it, guess what? 02:28 They're more addicted to the pain pills, 02:31 and the pain really isn't an issue, 02:32 the pain pills are the issue. Right 02:34 So that's a big issue that we see and a lot of people's 02:37 pain would heal, especially back pain, Nick, 02:41 if they would quit using their back. 02:43 But what's happened, especially in men, they might hurt 02:46 their back from lifting too much or pulling too much. 02:49 And then rather than letting the problem heal, 02:52 quit lifting, let it heal, maybe do some physical therapy... 02:55 they have to get back to work. 02:56 They have to keep doing what they're doing. Yeah 02:59 So they might take some medications 03:01 or something temporarily to get them over the hump, 03:03 but the problem never goes away. 03:06 So they never treat the cause of the pain. 03:08 Now if you were a baseball player and you were throwing 03:11 fastballs and broke your arm, you would put your arm 03:14 in a cast and let it rest and heal. That's right 03:17 One of the best treatments for pain is to just 03:20 rest the part of the body that's having the pain. 03:23 If it's your arm, rest your arm. 03:26 If it's your brain, rest your brain. 03:28 If it's your toe, rest your toe. 03:30 So rest is one thing that we have gotten away from 03:33 because we live in this fast paced world that we 03:35 never think we have to rest. Right 03:37 We're just going 24/7, we never need to rest. 03:40 And lots of people have headaches... 03:44 One of the causes of headaches is too much stress! Yeah! 03:47 You know, stress headaches is very common. 03:48 A lot of people have muscle pains. 03:50 A lot of the reasons we have muscle pains is because of 03:52 stress and the muscles get tight, 03:54 we're not taking good things in. 03:55 So pain is all around us and one of the things that 03:59 in Heartwise, in a week, with lots of people that 04:02 come with pain and I found that a lot of people... 04:06 we can't ever find out the cause of their pain 04:08 mentally and emotionally, but prayer is so valuable. 04:12 And we have a prayer site, don't we? 04:13 That's right - on our website heartwiseministries.org 04:16 We have a prayer form there and we encourage you to visit. 04:19 And you can list your prayer request and lift you up 04:21 in prayer and you can also pray for other people 04:23 who have listed their request there as well. 04:25 So we enjoy and like to pray for people 04:29 because God can heal in ways we can't and God helps 04:32 take away pain. 04:33 But today, we're going to talk a little bit about pain 04:36 and answer some questions about pain, 04:37 but the real take-home message is today for everyone 04:40 in this is if you're in pain, find out the cause for the pain. 04:44 Is there something that could be reversed. 04:46 Pain is usually caused by a nerve. 04:49 Find out why that nerve is unhappy and what can be done 04:53 to help the nerve heal because if a nerve can heal, 04:56 the pain can get better. 04:58 For instance, chiropractors... chiropractors work 05:02 and what they do is the muscles and nerves are involved 05:07 with each other and muscles put pressure on the nerves, 05:11 so they help relieve muscle pressure on the nerve. 05:15 So if a muscle gets tight and puts pressure on a nerve, 05:17 they help relieve that. 05:19 Of course, there are certain medications that help by 05:22 helping with inflammation so the body can heal itself. 05:26 So I think that the goal for people to understand is 05:29 in pain management is to find out what's causing the pain, 05:32 see if the body can heal itself. 05:35 And if we can't heal itself, really work on helping the brain 05:40 do better with the pain; 05:41 helping the body do better with pain because there are 05:44 things that we can do, Nick, that can help pain. 05:46 For instance, in a person that's under stress, 05:48 their pain is going to get worse. 05:50 A person doesn't sleep well, 05:51 their pain is going to get worse. 05:53 A person that doesn't drink enough water, 05:55 their pain will be worse. 05:57 A person that doesn't eat well... 05:59 We know that people that eat things like lots of animal, 06:02 lots of fried products - they have lots more inflammation, 06:05 their pain will get worse. 06:07 Also, their blood vessels aren't as good as others 06:10 so we can't bring the nutrients we need in to help the body 06:12 heal itself. 06:14 A lot of chronic back pain occurs because we don't have 06:18 a good blood supply to the disks. Okay 06:20 If we don't get a good blood supply to the disk, 06:23 we can't help the disk heal and do the things 06:25 it needs to stay healthy; therefore, the disk 06:27 comes to have inflammation. Right 06:29 And the inflammation, long-term, pushes on the nerve, 06:33 causes that to hurt. 06:35 Something as simple as posture... 06:37 I think you told me to sit up straight, 06:40 but didn't you hurt yourself the other day... 06:43 Yeah, I was exercising and I took a fall, 06:46 and it's happened one time before; 06:48 3 or 4 days later, I thought my back should have felt better, 06:51 but it was still sore. 06:52 So I went to a friend who is a physical therapist, 06:54 and he said, "Yeah, your hips, one of them is rotated, 06:57 and it's not lined up properly." 06:58 And so he did a manipulation 07:00 and we got it back in line, and everything was better. 07:03 But I guess it was causing some of the muscles... 07:04 Yes, to stretch, push on the nerves and it was hurting you. 07:09 Yeah, yeah... But once that got 07:12 straightened out, you were fine, right? 07:13 Yeah, there was a little soreness for a couple of days, 07:15 but then it goes away and it's all better. 07:18 Yeah, but a lot of the back pain that we have in this 07:20 world today - which we read the statistics, 07:22 a lot of that could be improved just by good posture. Right 07:26 Another thing that we've talked about before is... 07:28 We weren't designed to sit all day, 07:30 and how many of us sit all day or drive a truck all day, 07:34 or do anything in the same position, 07:36 and we don't have good posture? 07:38 When we don't have good posture, the skeleton and the muscles 07:40 put pressure on the nerves and guess what? 07:43 Lots of pain. Lot of pain! Yeah 07:46 Pain is not good and it gets your attention. 07:49 Pain is a sign that something is wrong in the body. 07:53 It's stress - chronic pain makes chemicals go up in the body 07:57 like adrenalin, cortisol, inflammatory markers 08:01 which damage the body over long-term. 08:04 Pain makes the blood pressure go up. Yeah 08:06 Pain makes the heart rate go up. 08:09 So pain makes digestion change. 08:11 Chronic pain affects the way you think. 08:14 So chronic pain affects the entire body, 08:17 so that's why it's so important, but you saw the statistics 08:20 for back pain - we have a major problem here. That's right 08:24 And one of the things we have to be careful is, again, 08:27 we've talked about this over and over... 08:28 Modern medicine best serves itself by getting 08:31 a person over a hump until they can heal on its own. 08:34 We were never really made to be on pain medicines 08:37 the rest of our lives. That's right! 08:39 Even though some people are, some people have to have that, 08:43 but we weren't really designed to have that. 08:45 So we were really designed to find the cause of the pain, 08:48 and there are lots of other ways we can treat pain 08:50 like posture, chiropractics, massage, heat... 08:55 There are certain types of anti-inflammatories 08:57 to give the body the best chance to heal itself. 09:00 That's what people should focus on when they have pain. 09:02 Now, there are specialists that deal with this. 09:04 They are called "pain specialists, 09:06 and there are some good ones and there are some bad ones. 09:10 If you go to one and the first thing he wants to do is 09:12 put you on a pain medicine and not talk to you about it, 09:14 that's a bad one. 09:16 We really want to make sure they understand the problem 09:18 in its entirety before giving a treatment. 09:21 And we want to have them try to get at the cause if they can. 09:25 Also, you want a pain doctor that's going to use 09:28 things that are a minimum risk to you. 09:31 Maybe they can have neural stimulators. 09:34 Maybe they can use posture. 09:35 Maybe they can use massage. 09:36 A lot of people - maybe they can use diet. 09:39 I've gotten a lot of people's chronic back pain better 09:42 by just going to a whole food, plant-based diet 09:46 because that helps inflammation which is chronically 09:48 hurting the nerves because the bones in the back don't 09:53 let the nerves out as well. Right 09:55 The little things like that and posture and exercise 09:57 and movement - those are all part of a comprehensive 10:00 pain plan. Okay 10:02 Now, we've been talking about a first aid kit, right? 10:05 That's right - I was going to just ask you... 10:07 What is this bottle here and why 10:08 should it be in a first aid Kit? 10:10 Well we've been trying to give everyone some examples of 10:14 things that they can have in the first aid kit to help out. 10:16 Remember, just to get people over the hump 10:18 until they can get at the cause. That's right 10:20 One of the things that I think a first aid kit is 10:22 some different types of very safe pain medications. 10:27 Just to sort of get you over the hump so you can function 10:30 you know, get things moving on. 10:32 There are many different ones out there. 10:34 This happens to be Tylenol. 10:36 Now, all medicines have side effects, 10:38 but Tylenol, if not taking too many, seems to be 10:41 fairly safe unless you have liver problems. 10:44 It doesn't cause a lot of side effects. 10:46 Another one that tends to work well is Motrin or Advil, 10:50 those things like that. 10:51 They are more of an anti-inflammatory, 10:54 and you can actually use things like Motrin and Advil 10:57 in conjunction with Tylenol to work on 10:59 two different pain pathways. Okay 11:01 Those tend to work very well for short periods of time, 11:05 and I think you need some pain medicine in your first aid kit 11:09 to help people get over the hump because chronic pain 11:13 is not good either. Right 11:15 But, at the same time, I've seen a lot of people 11:18 that are in pain that don't rest the body that's hurting, 11:21 and they end up making it worse. Yeah 11:23 They don't rest it, it gets more inflamed, 11:26 more swollen, the nerves get more damaged, 11:28 and you have more and more process going on. Right - right 11:31 Now, before we stop here, I know we have some questions, 11:34 but another thing that's very important for pain is the brain. 11:37 How's that? The perception of pain. 11:39 Oh right - yeah! 11:41 You know, pain can be learned, 11:43 and pain can be turned on and off and how the brain 11:47 handles it is very important. 11:48 You make endorphins which are natural pain killers 11:51 when you're happy and laugh and distracted. 11:53 I had pain for years in my arm. 11:55 I hurt my arm and I damaged nerves in my arm, 11:58 and for like 6 years, it felt like my funny bone 12:01 was activated and I had chronic pain in my arm. 12:04 And then just one day, the brain turned the pain off, 12:08 and I've never had it ever since! Wow 12:10 So the brain is very powerful dealing with pain, 12:13 and in our perception of pain. Right 12:15 Some people can have a low pain tolerance, 12:17 some have a high pain tolerance, 12:19 and there are things that we can do to relax our bodies 12:22 whether it be deep-breathing that helps with pain, 12:26 anything that cuts down stress is going to help the pain. Sure 12:30 So that's why I think that worship is also a very 12:33 good treatment for pain because as we come to worship 12:36 we lower the stress, stress is going to lower 12:39 and help us have less pain, and, of course, 12:41 God can heal right away. 12:42 So those are just some interesting things that we 12:45 have talked about pain and I know we've had 12:47 some questions come in. That's right 12:49 After the break, we're going to get back to some questions, 12:51 If you have questions about your health, 12:53 visit our website at: heartwiseministries.org 12:56 where you can ask the doctor your questions, 12:58 and we also have a prayer form there where you can 13:00 list your prayer request and pray for others. 13:03 We'll be back just after the break, so stay with us. |
Revised 2016-07-18