Participants: Dr. James Marcum (Host), Charles Mills
Series Code: UP
Program Code: UP00030A
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00:01 The following program present principles designed
00:03 to promote good health and is not intended to take 00:05 the place of personalized professional care. 00:07 The opinions and ideas expressed are those of the speaker. 00:10 Viewers are encouraged to draw their own conclusions 00:13 about the information presented. 00:16 Ask anyone who is suffering from it. 00:18 And they will tell you the chronic pain 00:20 is like nothing else on earth. 00:22 It takes on a life of its own. 00:25 Stay tune. 00:28 I am Dr. James Marcum. 00:30 Are you interested in discovering 00:31 the reason why you want solutions 00:34 to your healthcare problems? 00:36 Are you tired of taking medications? 00:39 Well, you're about to be given the Ultimate Prescription. 00:44 It is a most unwelcome guest, 00:46 a bothersome visitor that won't go away. 00:49 It can bring about many physical and mental changes 00:52 equally unwelcomed. 00:54 If you're one of the millions of people 00:56 living with persistent pain or debilitating condition, 00:59 you might want to stop what you're doing 01:00 and pay close attention the next 30 minutes. 01:03 Chronic pain is real. 01:06 It's no respecter of person 01:08 and its prevalence is on the rise. 01:10 The good new is, it can be mitigated, sometimes a lot. 01:14 Dr. Marcum, what do we need to know about chronic pain? 01:17 Well, that's a big question, Charles. 01:19 There's a lot we need to know about it. 01:21 And I'm just glad everyone is tuned in today 01:24 because chronic pain in America 01:27 affects about 100 million people. 01:30 That's one in three. Wow. 01:32 And I guess everyone has heard about the epidemic now 01:35 and the treatment for chronic pain. 01:37 Unfortunately, we're not finding out 01:39 like we have talked about before the reason why. 01:42 Yes. We're just given medicines. 01:44 And unfortunately, narcotic addiction is on the rise. 01:49 Now some people, for with chronic pain 01:51 do need narcotics. 01:53 But in so many other peoples, there is other options. 01:56 Narcotics, a little bit becomes a little bit more, 01:59 becomes a little bit more and addiction forms 02:01 and these medications are now 02:03 one of the leading causes of death in America. 02:07 Yeah, I mean it's just scary, 02:08 so we need to talk about 02:09 the different pharmacological treatments. 02:12 We need to talk about 02:13 the different causes of chronic pain. 02:15 The different treatments 02:16 that can be given for chronic pains. 02:18 So it's a big subject. 02:20 We're gonna sort of hit on the highpoints. 02:22 We're also going to answer some questions about it. 02:24 But the reason we talk about it 02:26 and I try to talk about subjects 02:27 even though I am a cardiologist, 02:29 I did take some internal medicine. 02:30 But I do talk to people with all these problems 02:32 and we do a research and we do know 02:35 that we need to talk about 02:36 the things that happen most. 02:37 Depression, chronic pain, heart disease, 02:40 cancer these are things that it touches everyone's lives. 02:43 And someone out there might not have chronic pain 02:46 but I am sure you know someone that does have chronic pain. 02:49 And if you can help share with them, 02:51 help serve them, 02:52 you're improving your own chemistry 02:54 when you serve someone else. 02:55 But you might help them out of a tough spot. 02:57 You might keep them away from the dangerous medication, 03:00 which cause downhill consequences. 03:02 Now we are 6000 years from the hand of the Creator. 03:05 We're long way from Eden and we've a lot of sin in us. 03:09 Pain of course is connected directly to sin, 03:12 without sin you don't have pain. 03:16 Can we reasonably think that we're going to completely 03:19 eliminate pain from our lives? 03:21 I don't think so Charles. 03:23 I think there is always 03:24 going to be pain in a sinful situation. 03:27 And when you talk about 100 million people having pain. 03:30 Chronic pain is not like the pain 03:31 I am having in my ankle occasionally 03:33 because I sprained it. 03:34 Chronic pain is define of pain 03:36 that it goes on beyond six months. 03:39 So six months. Yeah, six months. 03:40 Now some people do three, some people do six, 03:42 but pretty much the standard definition of pain 03:45 that goes on beyond six months. 03:47 So the first thing we have, 03:49 when we have chronic pain that doesn't go away is. 03:51 One of the best treatments for chronic pain is to rest 03:54 the part that has pain. 03:56 And I see this in back over and over and over. 03:59 A guy hurts his back. 04:01 And he needs to go back to work, 04:04 and instead of letting the back heal, 04:06 may be letting it rest, 04:07 may be doing some physical therapy. 04:09 The body can heal itself many times. Yeah. 04:12 Instead of doing that he says I got to back to work. 04:14 I got to have something to relieve the pain, 04:15 so I can work, okay. 04:17 So he goes back to work, doesn't have the pain, 04:19 so he doesn't feel it. 04:20 But he keeps on working, and guess what? 04:23 In the process 'cause he can't feel the pain, 04:25 pain is something God gives us to say, 04:27 listen you shouldn't be doing that. 04:28 Because he is taking pain medication. 04:29 Right, he doesn't feel the pain. 04:30 All right, he has taken medicine. 04:31 But he should be feeling the pain. 04:32 Yes, he should be. 04:33 But he has not been feeling the pain, 04:34 so he keeps working harder and harder 04:35 and he is lifting and pulling and guess what? 04:37 Whatever is bad gets worst. 04:38 Yes, It's like, you know, 04:40 if you had a broken arm. 04:41 You'll put in a cache. 04:42 You wouldn't keep throwing fast balls 04:44 because it wouldn't be allowed to heal. 04:46 So sometimes chronic pain can be simple as, 04:48 listen I have pain and if I don't take care of it 04:50 and listen to it, something worst is going to happen. 04:53 So sometimes when you rest chronic pain 04:55 will get better in and of itself. 04:57 You know, I thought about this because sometimes 04:59 if I injure my arm or my leg 05:01 and I want to take an aspirin or a Tylenol, 05:04 I want to get rid of the pain. 05:05 I certainly say to myself. 05:06 Now, wait a minute, if I do this, 05:08 I am not going to feel the pain 05:10 and I could do more injury to myself 05:12 because I can just walk and work. 05:15 So when do we know to take the pill, 05:20 when do we know not to take the pill for pain, 05:24 this over-the-counter things. 05:25 Should we just learn to live with the pain 05:27 and then be aware as the body heals itself 05:30 and the pain slowly goes away. 05:31 Well, first of all. Which is hard to do. 05:33 Yeah, first of all if the pain is not going away, 05:36 it's a problem, okay. 05:37 For six months. Well that's a problem. 05:40 You have pain that goes on for six months. 05:41 It's the pain that keeps going on is the problem. Okay. 05:44 And the first part in evaluation of pain 05:46 is to find out what is causing the pain. 05:50 And when you know what's causing the pain, 05:52 you're more likely to be able to fix the pain. 05:54 Yeah. Okay, for instance I give this analogy. 05:56 You know, quite a bit. 05:58 If you're, you know, if you're hitting 06:01 your thumb with a hammer, okay. 06:04 You can take pain medicine for that but as long as 06:06 you're hitting it with the hammer, 06:07 something is gonna still hurt, okay. 06:10 So you want to find the cause 06:11 and if you think going from top to bottom, 06:13 what are some of the causes of chronic pain. 06:16 Well, let's start with our feet. 06:17 One of the most common causes of foot pain 06:19 is having foot malalignment. 06:22 If the foot is misaligned you're wearing bad shoes. 06:25 If there is not enough arch support, if there is, 06:27 if you're in high heels everyday, 06:29 you can have chronic pain just from your footwear. 06:32 You might be having things displaced in the foot, 06:34 you might have fasciitis and the treatment 06:36 for that is not to take a lot of medicines 06:38 but to correct the foot pain. 06:40 And this pain travels, what I have discovered 06:42 in my own life, this pain travels. 06:44 I had what I discovered was an arch 06:47 that was not supporting me and I did not know that. 06:50 And I was walking around for years 06:51 and I had back pains. Exactly. 06:54 And it was not, then I said what's wrong with my back. 06:56 But what I discovered was that my arches 06:58 weren't supporting me as they should. 06:59 When I got those little lifts they put in there, 07:01 little things in the shoes, my back pain went away. 07:04 Yeah. So sometimes pain is not 07:09 where you think it's going to be. 07:10 It reverts. It reverts, something hurts in the valve 07:13 which is causing the pain in that location. 07:14 Remember pain comes from the nervous system. 07:17 And these nerves come from the head to the toes. Yeah. 07:20 You know, so you know some people might be having pain 07:23 in the lower back, sciatica, a pinch nerve. 07:26 The treatment for that might just be some exercise, 07:29 some massage, even chiropractic care 07:32 can release the pressure on that nerve. 07:34 Exercise, rest that might be better than taking a medicine 07:37 and so doing the things that make it worst. 07:39 Okay. Other types of chronic pain. 07:41 If you've been in an accident having trauma, 07:43 having the nerves damage. 07:45 That's severely pain. 07:46 Sometimes cancer can cause chronic pain. 07:49 Irritable bowel can cause it. 07:52 Any joints, arthritis is a very common cause of chronic pain. 07:56 You heard the word fibromyalgia, 07:58 pains throughout the body. 08:00 You know that can cause chronic pain, 08:02 chronic headaches, okay. 08:03 Now chronic headaches for instance can be simple 08:06 as having a TMJ syndrome, where your joint, 08:09 your joints in your jaw is stimulating the nerves 08:12 which cause headaches. 08:13 Nowadays dentists have fittings that can help with that. 08:16 Sometimes chiropractic 08:18 can release the pressure on the nerves. 08:19 That might be a better option 08:21 than taking a lot of pain medicines. 08:23 So when you have chronic pain, 08:25 if possible find out the reason why 08:28 and that's going to help you. 08:29 Physicians for instance there is a lady the other day, 08:31 I saw that had a compression fracture 08:33 on her back of the spine. 08:35 That's where one of the spinous process 08:36 has just deteriorated. 08:38 Well, in that way she was taking narcotics. 08:40 Well, she wasn't going to the bathroom, 08:42 she is having lot of side effects 08:43 with her other medicines, she was thinking herself. 08:46 A good physician got hold of her and said, listen. 08:48 You know there is some cement 08:50 we can put into that called kyphoplasty 08:52 that might help with this fracture, 08:54 they put the kyphoplasty in. 08:55 Her pain went away, 08:57 so she needn't take the chronic pain medication. 08:59 Modern medicine at its best. 09:00 Yes, so there is a place where 09:02 if you can fix some things with modern medicine do that. 09:04 Another lady that this happened a couple months ago, 09:07 she was in the hospital Charles. 09:09 And she was having pain everyday in her back, 09:11 my back hurts, my back hurts. 09:13 And guess what? 09:14 They kept giving her pain medicines. 09:15 My back still hurts. 09:16 Well, we rolled her over and pulled the syringe, 09:19 the needle out of her back, 09:21 and guess what, her pain went away. 09:23 She had a needle that had got in her back 09:26 that was sticking her in back. 09:27 No one even cared to look or evaluate the pain. Have mercy. 09:30 So the first thing in chronic pain is have the pain evaluated. 09:34 Yes. Let's see what it is and what it isn't. 09:36 You know sometimes even medicines can cause pain. 09:39 A fellow came to me the other day, 09:41 he was having pain in all of his muscles. 09:42 You know, I just touched his muscles 09:44 and he would jump in pain. 09:45 He says it hurts all time. 09:46 I don't even feel like living. 09:47 Well, he happened to be on a medicine called the statin 09:50 which can cause Myositis inflammation 09:53 of all the joint pains. 09:54 He had that and he got that out of his life 09:56 and he got lot better. 09:58 Another lady came to me not too long 10:00 that had severe arthritis, 10:01 that's inflammation of the joints. 10:04 And you know, she just did some simple things 10:06 like drinking some more water which helps, 10:08 which helps joints have lubrication. 10:11 She did another simple thing 10:12 like she took some alpha omega-3 fatty acids, 10:15 which she got in almonds and walnuts. 10:17 She started doing that. 10:18 She started doing some simple exercises 10:20 which raised endorphins. 10:22 And her pain was controlled enough, 10:24 so she didn't have to take the narcotic. 10:26 She was able to move down to something less 10:29 called acetaminophen or Tylenol. 10:31 What I hear you saying is that when pain is present, 10:35 we need to start our search. 10:37 We need to start looking for the cause 10:38 and if we don't start looking for the cause 10:41 chances are we're not going to find the solution. Right. 10:44 And don't jump on the narcotic bandwagon right away. 10:48 Too many people are taking chronic narcotics, okay. 10:51 There are-- there is a place for them 10:53 but they have to be watched very closely 10:55 because they are addictive. 10:56 And you see all these pain clinics 10:58 and all these overuse of narcotics, 11:00 all the deaths from narcotics we see in the news. 11:03 Heath Ledger, Whitney Houston all of them had narcotics. 11:07 Now did they have physical pain or mental pain? 11:09 Some people are taking narcotics 11:11 for mental pain to escape from all the stress 11:14 that their body is under, 11:15 because they want to escape this 11:16 and that's not the solution at all. 11:18 There's other great treatments for pain 11:20 that people don't think about like music. 11:22 Music is a treatment for pain. 11:24 Worship is a treatment for pain as well as prayer. 11:28 There's just tons of ways we can treat chronic pain 11:31 if we can find out the reason why. 11:34 Do not be satisfied until you know the reason, 11:37 why I hear you say. Right. 11:38 Do not just say, okay, I have a pain, 11:41 I want a pill and I'll pay the bill 11:43 and everything will be fine. 11:45 Don't be satisfied with that. 11:46 When you have that pain, go searching for the reason. 11:49 And a lot of lifestyle issues are connected with pain. 11:53 A lot of them, Charles. We know-- 11:55 Doesn't cost you anything to make those kind of changes. 11:57 No, no, we know that people that don't exercise 12:00 and move their body parts have higher chances 12:02 of having joint and body pains. 12:04 Yeah. We know that they also have a chance 12:06 of having higher risk of fractures. 12:08 So there is some things you can do to prevent chronic pain. 12:12 We know that people that don't drink enough water 12:15 can have more headaches 12:16 which it can be turn into be a chronic nature. 12:19 We can also can have more joint pains. 12:22 So there's so many lifestyle things that we can do. 12:25 I mean there's so many, 12:26 you know, other interventions we can do. 12:28 Just having a good belly laugh 12:29 occasionally makes up your endorphins. 12:31 We know that people who are depressed 12:32 that makes all pains worst. 12:34 That's right, that's right. 12:35 Well, we're gonna take a break and when we come back, 12:37 we're gong to address some of the questions 12:39 that have come into heartwiseministries.org. 12:41 This is an important tool for you listener and viewer. 12:45 To go to heartwiseministries.org 12:47 and enter your question, 12:48 so that we can address them right here on the program 12:50 and we'll do that when we come back. 12:52 There is no reason on this earth, 12:54 why we should not know something, not today. 12:57 We have programs and the internet 12:58 and books and magazines and radio shows 13:01 that can give us the answers and we'll find the answers 13:03 for your questions on our return, so stay put. |
Revised 2014-12-17