Chronic Pain
Psychological aspect
True Pain Control by Belief and Context
Punches hurt much less during a fight than after. Adrenaline has pain blunting effects. NE binding to pain receptors shuts pain pathways down.
Loss of pain with the belief of morphine administration.
Romantic Love and Pain
If people look or think about someone they love, their threshold of pain increases. All depends on how infatuated they are with their love interest. Codependent people can blunt the response dramatically. Especially in new relationships.
Dopaminergic Control of Pain
The reason this infatuation can blunt pain is because of dopamine. New infatuation is related to the dopamine response (excitement, pupils dilating, etc.). Serotonin and oxytocin are more for stable relationships.
Postural
Injuries
Recovering Movement Faster After Injury
Most muscular atrophy from injury is because nerves are not active and muscles aren’t contracting.
If we have damage in our sensory motor pathways or limb, there is great benefit in restricting use of the opposite, better performing, uninjured side. Cast to prevent further damage but it is more important to prevent opposing movement. This allows plasticity in both sides of the brain. Runaway asymmetry can be prevented. Speed of recovery is significantly faster too.
The balance is always dynamic so any asymmetry will update the body dramatically.
Don’t Over Compensate
All our senses and movement are always competing. Don’t rely on where you are still strong.
Exercise the injured limb individually, given it is not painful. Accelerates recovery of function.
Concussion, TBI & Brain Ageing
Was the skull injured? Was there a breach of the skull?
Headache, photophobia, sleep disruptive, trouble concentrating, etc.
Avoid another concussion to allow healing. TBIs are very similar to brain aging.
The Brain’s Sewage Treatment System: Glymphatic Clearance
Very active during sleep. Clears away debris between neurons and glia are actively injured in repairing the connections. Get TBI sufferers to sleep. Slow wave sleep in particular will do most of the work.
Sleeping on one’s side increases wash out of metabolites and debris.
Types of Exercise for Restoring & Maintaining Brain Health
Zone 2 cardio (low level where you can still talk) x 3 per week increase clearance and glymphatic flow. 30-45 minutes of zone 2.
Aging is a non-linear process. These exercises will also assist in improving longevity.
Ambulance Cells in The Brain
Aquaporin 4 is a molecule related to the glial system (mainly in astrocytes). Astrocytes connect between the neurons, the glymphatic system, vascular, and the synapses.
Inflammation, Turmeric, Lead and DHT
Chronic inflammation is bad but acute inflammation is what allows us to heal and feel the pain response.
Turmeric has anti-inflammatory properties but we need to remember inflammation can be good.
You need to be careful as turmeric can be laden with lead, depending on the source, and can be antagonistic to dihydrotestosterone.
Many report a blunting of their libido.
Adrenalin: Wim Hof, Tummo, “Super-Oxygenation” Breathing
WHM liberates adrenaline from the adrenals, which can counter infection from endotoxins. Stress counters infection by liberating killer cells. So, you need to regulate that response. When some people warm up again, after being exposed to frequent cold, their immune system is blunted and that’s when they get sick. Short term plasticity to stress.
Protocols For Accelerating Tissue Repair & Managing Pain
Sleep is essential. Doesn’t have to be 8 hours. Just get 8 hours immobile and try to get SWS. 10-minute walk per day unless it is impossible.
Ice Is Not Always Nice (For Pain and Injury): Sludging, Fascia, Etc.
Will eliminate pain for a short while but is mostly placebo. It creates sludging in the blood and fascia, restricting movement, and reducing repair. More top-down than physiologically useful.
Cooling can shut down nerves but then rebounds with greater pain afterwards. Becoming hyperactive.
Heat is beneficial. Improving viscosity of tissues and clearance perfusion of fluid from the area.
Heat, mobility, movement, sleep, sunlight. Sometimes restricting above and below the injury to then release and increase perfusion through the site.
Chronic and/or Whole-Body Pain; Red-Light Therapy, Sunlight
Chronic pain is plasticity gone wrong. Fibromyalgia, for example, is whole-body pain related to too little inhibition from GABA and glycine. Too little central modulation of pain responses, hence full-body pain.
Red light therapy locally may have some effect. Getting into sunlight would most likely have a greater effect.
Red light therapy, stimulation to eyes in people 40 and older can help with macular degeneration.
The old way of thinking is ice, non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs, things that block prostaglandins – aspirin, ibuprofen, etc. Things that are COX prostaglandin blockers. Reduces inflammation.
Inflammation is good. Need to have blood perfusion to clean up the site and injury (BFR, sleep, zone 2 cardio x 3 per week). Maybe red-light therapy but sun is probably better.
Stem Cells, Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP: Shams, Shoulds and Should Nots
Injection itself may be the cause of the effect in PRP. The claim that PRP actually contains enough stem cells is weak at best. Stem cells need to be molecularly restricted to prevent them from becoming tumor cells.
Young Blood: Actual Science
TIMP2 molecule isolated. Things in young blood that is lost in older individuals may be conserved.
IBS
Medical, Surgery, and Alternative
Acupuncture: Rigorous Scientific Assessment
Does work but can exacerbate pain too. Our somatosensory map has cross-over and form synapses with internal organs and sensation on the skin. Stimulating particular areas on the body with acupuncture can have effects on organ systems. Modulating pain and inflammation.
Electro-acupuncture has a strong effect of increasing inflammation in an area (measured in the abdomen). The stress response was designed to combat infection. There are certain patterns of stimulation of the abdomen that can liberate immune cells from immune organs, like the spleen, that counter infection through the release of things like adrenaline.
The stimulation of the hind limbs at low intensity led to increases of the vagal pathway and PNS activation.
When you stimulate pathways that activate the adrenals it binds to beta-noradrenergic receptors, which activate the spleen, liberates cells to combat infection and is anti-inflammatory. Alternatively, the intense stimulation of abdominal and other areas can lead to pro-inflammatory pathways being activated and exacerbated pain.