Nutrition and Pain: Building Resilience Through Nourishment

“Keep Calm and Treat Pain” is perhaps an affirmation for therapists when encountering patients suffering from pain, whether acute or chronic. The reality is this: treating pain is complicated. Treating pain has brought many a health care provider to his or her proverbial knees. It has also led us as a nation into the depths of the opioid epidemic which claimed over 165,000 lives between the years of 1999 and 2014 (Dowell & Haegerich, 2016). That number has swollen to over 200,000 in up-to-date calculations and according to the CDC, 42,000 human beings, not statistics, were killed by opioids in 2016 - a record.

So why has treating pain eluded us as a nation? The answers are as complicated as treating pain itself. Which is why we as health care providers must seek out not simply alternatives, but the truth in the matter. Why are so many suffering? Why has chronic pain become the enormous beast that it has become? What might we do differently, collectively, and how might we examine this issue through a holistic mindset?

In just a few weeks, I have the privilege of teaching amongst 10 physical therapy professionals and one physician from around the nation who with coordinated efforts created a landmark pre-conference course at CSM in New Orleans through the Orthopaedic Section of the APTA. Included in the 11 are myself and another Herman & Wallace instructor Carolyn McManus, PT, MS, MA who teaches “Mindfulness Based Pain Treatment” through the Institute.

The CSM pre-conference course title is “Keep Calm and Treat Pain” representing a necessary effort to provide the clinician with ideas and inspiration for helping the profession as a whole treat pain with an integrative approach.

“Pain and Nutrition: Building Resilience Through Nourishment” is the section I look forward to sharing. It will introduce concepts we can leverage to allow us confidence in seeking alternate ways of taming this beast which is chronic pain - ways which can enhance health and well-being of our clients in pelvic rehabilitation. We must not be passive observers of the opioid epidemic. We must come to terms with the fact that our nations go-to tool for treating pain unfortunately causes side-effects which can and does include loss of life. We can do better. And we will.

While the CSM pre-conference course will give you a taste of the nutrition concepts available to you, it is a mere tip of the nourishment iceberg. I continue my passion and mission with the two-day course titled “Nutrition Perspectives for the Pelvic Rehab Therapist”, an experience that can elevate your conversations with clients. It will pave a path of understanding for the provider, allowing us to share options, understanding, and hope. “Nutrition Perspectives for the Pelvic Rehab Therapist is coming next to Maywood, IL March 3 & 4, 2018. I welcome you to join me.

APTA CSM: https://apta.expoplanner.com/index.cfm?do=expomap.sess&event_id=27&session_id=13763. Accessed January 8, 2018.
CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/index.html. Accessed January 8, 2018.
Dowell, D., & Haegerich, T. M. (2016). Using the CDC Guideline and Tools for Opioid Prescribing in Patients with Chronic Pain. Am Fam Physician, 93(12), 970-972.
Lerner, A., Neidhofer, S., & Matthias, T. (2017). The Gut Microbiome Feelings of the Brain: A Perspective for Non-Microbiologists. Microorganisms, 5(4). doi:10.3390/microorganisms5040066
Murthy, V. H. (2016). Ending the Opioid Epidemic - A Call to Action. N Engl J Med, 375(25), 2413-2415. doi:10.1056/NEJMp1612578