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Excerpt from
“Live Pain Free! 6 Steps to a Pain Free Life” by Dr. Pamela Avery
………”The grandfather of modern pain management was an anesthesiologist named John Bonica. Dr. Bonica was dedicated to the concept that chronic pain was a poorly defined condition that could be understood if the medical and scientific community took an interest in studying it as a disease state, in and of itself. This was a rather radical notion at the time.
Most members of the medical community saw pain as a by-product of a disease or simply the aging process. If a particular disease could be addressed medically or surgically, then the pain should naturally be cured as well. That was a perfectly acceptable model for acute pain or pain that had only been present a relatively short time. That’s because acute pain is usually a result of an infection, a trauma or a specific disease state. When the infection clears, the trauma heals, or the disease itself is cured, most acute pain resolves as well.
However, chronic pain often has its origins in rather benign injuries or diseases that often have healed years before, yet the pain has persisted. Other chronic pain is a result of degenerative diseases so prevalent in our society – degenerative arthritis, diabetes and autoimmune disorders. In addition, a growing number of people are experiencing pain with no discernable reason at all from a purely physical basis.
Dr. Bonica recognized something different was happening in your body when acute pain transformed into chronic pain. He researched and sought out the research of others as to how this transformation occurred and what could be done to control it. He dedicated his life to promoting and developing the tools of most modern pain management therapies.
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Interestingly, he believed in the value of a multi-disciplinary approach to pain, recognizing that no one single specialty of medicine had all the answers for chronic pain. He embraced the concept of using many different members of a team to develop a customized treatment plan for each individual’s unique situation.
Dr. Bonica didn’t live to see the growth of interest in pain management. Nor did he live to see the explosion of interest in natural therapies for the treatment of pain. But I think if he were alive today, he would be fascinated at the research and interest in chronic pain. At the same time, I believe he would see the value of a customized plan designed to create an underlying foundation of optimal health for each individual and at the same time addressing their unique pain. With his firm belief in the multi-discipline approach to controlling pain, I believe he would have embraced the concept of using genetics, nutrition and lifestyle changes to strengthen the body and mind’s ability to cope with pain and modulate its impact on the body.
In this book, I’m going to take Dr. Bonica’s viewpoint and expand upon it. I am going to teach you the six steps that you can take today to begin a journey of creating a multi-disciplinary approach to a customized program of optimal health for beating chronic pain. I will explain the concepts from the fields of genetics, nutrition, botanical medicine, stress management, exercise physiology and sleep studies that can impact on your overall health as well as your overall pain.
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Whether you suffer from chronic pain daily or simply find yourself with more aches and pains as you age, you will benefit from this program. You will learn how your genetic make-up predisposes you to processes and diseases that create chronic inflammation and thus chronic pain. You will learn how you can impact the expression of your genetic code with diet and lifestyle changes. You will learn which foods to, and which foods not to eat, in order to control your pain. And as a bonus you will learn how to lose weight and lower your body fat content thus decreasing your body’s overall levels of inflammation. You will learn which supplements to take and why they help. You will learn about stress and how it increases your pain. You will learn simple exercises that will lower stress and lower your pain.You will learn about exercise and how it decreases pain. You will learn simple exercises that will boost your energy, burn fat and lower your pain. In addition, you will learn about sleep and the important role it plays in pain relief. You will learn how much sleep you need, when you need it and how to help yourself achieve it. Through this 6 step process, you will learn how to create a life of optimal health, all the while becoming pain-free.
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