Solvining The Mystery of Chronic Pain and Depression

Many of us do everything the medical establishment asks when we are faced with injury, pain and chronic disease. Yet we just can’t seem to get well. And we are left with the question: Why can’t I achieve total recovery?

Dr. Gary Kaplan, Doctor of Osteopathy, author of Total Recovery: Solving the Mystery of Chronic Pain and Depression tells us the medical establishment has been thinking about disease all wrong. Current research is revealing the neurological connection between physical pain and emotional pain as two sides of the same coin.

New research findings reveal that every injury, infection, toxin, and emotional assault we experience generates the same inflammation reaction in the brain. Inflammation activates tiny cells in the brain called microglia.

Inflammation is a normal, healthy response to injury or infection. Inflammation, which displays as localized heat, redness, swelling, and pain, increases nourishment and immune activity where healing is needed. But chronic inflammation can have devastating effects contributing to chronic diseases, autoimmune diseases, or possibly cancer.

Microglia are small nonneural cells, rather immune cells that form part of the supporting structure of the central nervous system. These cells, found in all regions of the brain and spinal cord, help to defend and repair the brain from injuries.

When the microglia receive too many assaults, this creates a devastating cumulative effect of hyper-reactivity. This hyper-reactivity is a key to understanding the connection between chronic physical pain and depression. A body in constant stress cannot completely heal.

In Total Recovery, Dr. Gary Kaplan tells us conventional treatment for health conditions focuses on symptoms, not causes. This leaves patients locked into a lifetime of pain and suffering. Dr. Kaplan has a unified theory of chronic pain and depression, which helps us understand the cause of these conditions as well as the issues we must address to create a pathway to healing.

Mark Hyman, MD, author and chairman of the Institute for Functional Medicine, remarks with cutting edge science and clinical expertise, Kaplan has identified the source of the inflammation that has been keeping patients in an endless cycle of pain and depression. Kaplan offers excellent insight into the role our life experiences as they create a cumulative effect on our health.

Andrew Weil, MD, founder and director of the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona Health Sciences Center and author remarks Kaplan’s Total Recovery, has created potentially game-changing insight. The neurological key to the inflammation, which keeps patients in an endless cycle of pain and depression. This remarkable book may change your life.

Brian Berman, MD. Professor of Family and Community Medicine and Director of the Center for Integrative Medicine, University of Maryland School of Medicine reports Dr. Kaplan’s book offers us paradigm-shifting insights into the causes of chronic pain.

Wayne B. Jonas, MD, Former Director (1995-1999), Office of Alternative Medicine, National Institutes of Health describes Gary Kaplan as the Sherlock Holmes of chronic pain. Total Recovery describes a method to uncover the underlying causes of chronic pain and how by correcting them patients can move toward health. Jonas describes it as a 'must read' at every pain center, by every pain physician and for every patient with chronic pain.

Kaplan sees the whole person. He views the seemingly disconnected events of the individuals life history and health issues as source information for the brain’s microglia hyper-activity. This life and health history predisposes patients’ bodies and emotions to over-react to seeming small new traumas.

Dr. Gary Kaplan’s website describes him as a pioneer of integrative medicine and board-certified in both family medicine and pain medicine. He is a clinical associate professor at Georgetown University, director of the Kaplan Center for Integrative Medicine, and serves as a consultant to the NIH.

Kaplan offers a free online Total Recovery Toolkit, which includes:

A 3-PART VIDEO SERIES ON THE GUT BRAIN CONNECTION

In this series, Dr. Kaplan discusses why people stay in pain, in spite of treatment, and how treatment strategies must change to become more effective. Topics include:

▪ The neuro-physiological connection between the human gut and brain.
▪ The gut’s role in mediating chronic pain conditions.
▪ The effect of pain medications and antibiotics on gut health.
▪ The problem of “leaky gut” and how this condition contributes to chronic pain, inflammation, obesity, fatigue, metabolic syndrome and depression.
▪ How to improve gut health through nutrition, exercise and stress management.

AUTOGENIC MEDITATION INSTRUCTION

The Total Recovery Toolkit also includes an 8-minute autogenic meditation instruction MP3 to guide you in exploring several relaxation techniques to help regulate physiological variables such as body temperature and blood pressure. Say ah…

A WEEKLY HEALTH DIARY

Keeping a current health diary assists with identifying any problem aspects to your diet. The toolkit includes a template for your diary with tips for getting started.

A HEALTH TIMELINE

Maintaining a health timeline helps you to see if/when a cumulative problematic health pattern has emerged. If you’re dealing with an illness, it will help you to find evidence of how your illness has evolved over the years. The toolkit includes a health timeline template to effectively track and chart your health history. You might be surprised at what you’ll find!

CONSUMER GUIDE TO CHOOSING A DOCTOR TO TREAT YOUR CHRONIC PAIN

medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Microglial cells

http://www.kaplanclinic.com/

http://www.amazon.com/Total-Recovery-Solving-Mystery-Depression/

Strategies for a Cancer Free Life

Three key steps toward a cancer free life are to reduce body inflammation, support your immune system, and establish a healthy lifestyle.

What is body inflammation? Inflammation is a normal, healthy response to injury or infection.  Inflammation displays as localized heat, redness, swelling, and pain. The inflammation process increases nourishment and immune activity in the area where infection needs to be healed.

However inflammation does have destructive potential. In autoimmune diseases the immune system mistakenly targets the body’s own tissues. Whole-body inflammation is a chronic, low-level inflammation.  Research suggests chronic inflammation sets the foundation for diseases such as heart disease, cancer and neurodegenerative conditions.

Chronic inflammation is influenced by epigenetics and the habits of a sedentary lifestyle, stress, food choices, and exposure to environmental toxins, which includes alcohol and secondhand tobacco smoke. Many people in Western societies live life in a pro-inflammatory state resulting from food choices.

Research has identified several factors that suppress the immune system. Those who become most seriously ill with swine flu displayed a weakened immune system and shared a common characteristic. Their body mass index was over 40, which is considered morbidly obese. Excess weight can cause hormonal imbalances and inflammation impairing the immune system’s ability to fight infection.

Drinking water plays a role in whether or not you get sick. About 25 million Americans drink well water, which contains more than the EPA, Environmental Protection Agency, recommended safe levels of arsenic. Arsenic affects the immnune response and is linked to several different cancers, and the swine flu. Researchers at Dartmouth Medical School found that a group of mice that spent 5 weeks drinking arsenic-tainted water and were given swine flu developed suppressed immune systems and many died. Mice who didn’t drink tainted water got the flu but recovered completely.

According to the American Psychological Association long-term stress weakens the immune system’s ability to respond. Philip Tierno, PhD, director of clinical microbiology and immunology at New York University and author of The Secret Life of Germs, tells us if you become stressed while you have the flu, your symptoms can get worse.

Tierno says the average adult picks up one to three colds each season that typically last 3 or 4 days. If you get more your resistance is low displaying weakened immunity. He recommends getting more sleep, regular exercise, and including lots of healthy veggies and immune boosting foods in your diet.

About 70% of our immune system is located in and around our digestive system. The immune system starts in the mouth. This immune factor known as sIGa await germs or microbes that are not welcome in the body.  When activated this immune factor contacts other immune mediators and attacks the invader or microbe.

Signs of a stressed and inflamed digestive track include stomach bloating, itchy skin, body rashes, mouth ulcers, and white-coated tongue.  Inflammation results from many rounds of antibiotics, limited amounts of fresh fruits and vegetables, excess consumption of saturated fat or fatty foods, smoking, and stress.

An important immune factor, gut flora, lives in the digestive system of the stomach. These healthy bacteria are natural inhabitants of the digestive system. Gut flora helps digest food and maintains the digestive environmental system. There is more gut flora bacteria in the digestive system than cells in the body. Gut flora protects the stomach lining and the rest of the digestive system from opportunistic bacteria such as Candida Albicans.

Inflammation of the intestinal track may create a leaky, permeable gut leading to malnutrition. Approximately 60,000,000 million Americans are experiencing intestinal inflammation resulting in a variety of digestive diseases. To improve the immune system and the integrity of the gut add live probiotics to the diet, and avoid stress, toxic chemicals, processed foods, food additives, sugar, contraceptives, antibiotics, and pain pills.

Digestive inflammation and imbalances in intestinal bacteria are related to arthritis diarrhea, B12 deficiency, chronic fatigue syndrome, cystic acne, breast cancer, eczema, food allergy or sensitivity, inflammatory bowel disease, irritable bowel syndrome, psoriasis, heartburn, indigestion and constipation, Crohn’s disease, and ulcerative colitis.

Gluten intolerance cause inflammation through out the body and mimics migraines, anxiety attacks, brain fog and poor concentrate. Research shows inflammation triggered by food sensitivities contributes to chronic fatigue syndrome, and fibromyalgia. When intestinal balance is restored diminishing inflammation and symptoms may resolve. 

A taxed liver can’t process toxins and fat efficiently contributing to systemic inflammation. Many foods help clean the liver naturally by stimulating its natural ability to cleanse toxic waste from the body. To support liver function add these foods to the diet: spinach, steamed broccoli, hemp oil, wild caught salmon, tart cherries, walnuts, onions and garlic, pineapple, and fermented foods like kefir milk.

To counter chronic inflammation

·      Stop eating refined, processed and manufactured foods.

·      Eliminate omega-6 fatty acids from snack foods and fast foods (excess of omega-6 fatty acids cause the body to synthesize pro inflammatory compounds).

·      Increase intake of balanced amounts of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids (from oily fish-tuna/salmon, walnuts, flax, hemp and to a lesser degree canola oil and sea vegetables)

To support the immune system

·      Drink plenty of water to flush out toxins—you’re drinking the right amount if your urine is pale yellow (coffee and tea are acceptable and the daily amount varies from person to person.)

·      If well water tests high for arsenic switch to bottled water or invest in a remediation system to remove the arsenic.

·      Detoxify liver and colon.

·      Eat two servings of fruit, three servings of vegetables, include probiotics and dietary fiber from healthy foods in your diet

Anti-inflammatory and cleansing foods

1.      Garlic—activates liver enzymes that help your body flush out toxins. Garlic also holds high amounts of allicin and selenium, two natural compounds that aid in liver cleansing

2.      Grapefruit—high in both vitamin C and antioxidants, helps boost production of the liver detoxification enzymes

3.      Beets and Carrots—high in plant-flavonoids and beta-carotene that help stimulate and improve overall liver function.

4.      Green Tea—contains antioxidants known as catechins, which assists liver function.

5.      Leafy Green Vegetables—eaten raw, cooked, or juiced, are high in plant chlorophylls that remove environmental toxins from the blood stream and neutralize heavy metals, chemicals and pesticides.

6.      Avocados—nutrient-dense and helps the body produce glutathione

7.      Apples—contains pectin, which cleanses and release toxins from the digestive tract

8.      Olive Oil—and cold-pressed organic oils such as olive, hemp and flax-seed provide a lipid base that bonds to harmful toxins for easy elimination

9.      Alternative Grains—like quinoa, millet, and buckwheat (avoid wheat and grains that contain gluten)

10.      Cruciferous Vegetables—such as broccoli and cauliflower to increase liver glucosinolate adding enzymes that help flush out carcinogens, and other toxins, and may significantly lower cancer risks

11.      Lemons & Limes—high amounts of vitamin C, which aids the body in synthesizing toxic materials into substances that can be absorbed by water and easily eliminated

12.      Walnuts—contain high amounts of the amino acid arginine, help detoxify ammonia, and are high in glutathione

13.      Cabbage—helps stimulate the activation of two crucial liver detoxifying enzymes that help flush out toxins (Try eating more kimchi, coleslaw, cabbage soup and sauerkraut).

14.      Turmeric—helps boost liver detox by assisting enzymes that actively flush out dietary carcinogens.

Life Style Immunity Boosting Tips

Meditate

Practice Qigong (Chinese mind-body exercise—breath control with slow movement)

Exercise at least five days a week

Get enough sleep

Take care of your toothbrush (change every three months)

Avoid stress and depression

Stop biting your nails, or rubbing your eyes with fingers

Take a 10-minute walk a few times a day

Get your vitamin D levels checked

Reduce your stress level,

Eat primarily omega 3 such as olive oil, fish oil, or canola 

Drink less than two alcoholic drinks a day (alcohol is toxic to the system)

Lose weight

Drink at least 8 glasses of water daily

Take supplemental vitamin C and D3

Take astragalus (herbal supplement to blood cells that fight viruses)

Use herbs and spices particularly oregano and mustard, thyme, and turmeric

Eat mushroom particularly shiitake, reishi, and maitake

Eat more fruit

Eat lean protein at every meal chicken, fish or nuts,

Eat 5 cups of fruits and vegetables a day

Cut back on sweets 

http://www.wikihow.com/Cleanse-the-Liver

http://www.hemorrhoidinformationcenter.com/the-digestive-immune-system-connection/#sthash.Npvn84EK.dpuf

http://www.cancerfightingstrategies.com/#sthash.UtvAXhm9.dpbs

http://www.today.com/id/45022571/ns/today-today_health/t/easy-ways-boost-your-immune-system/#.VMUwESgdU20

http://www.prevention.com/health/health-concerns/7-surprising-signs-your-immunity-needs-boost

www.drweil.com/.../Reducing-Whole-Body-Inflammation.html‬