Ultimate Prescription

Pain

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: Nick Evenson (Host), Dr. James Marcum

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Series Code: UP

Program Code: UP000071A


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.


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Revised 2016-07-18