tackling chronic illness and / or chronic pain requires a similar approach

When it comes to pain, 25 years of experience has taught me a couple of important things.  For one, despite everything you hear to the contrary, Americans are an unhealthy people.  The sheer magnitude of the statistics alone —– OVER 100 MILLION CITIZENS dealing with Chronic Pain, and 70% of our population OVERWEIGHT —- should make you realize this.  I’ve concluded that unless you live in a uniquely health conscious part of the country, as long as people don’t have more pain than they can handle, most don’t really care about their health (or at least care enough to make some “hard” changes).

According to the Cleavland Clinic, “acute pain does not last longer than six months, and it disappears when the underlying cause of pain has been treated or has healed“.  Acute pain rarely if ever motivates people to get healthy.   However, once I show people that Chronic Pain and Chronic Illness have the same underlying cause, there are some people who are ready to draw their swords and to to war. Draw their swords?  That’s right; losing weight, regaining your health, and getting out of pain, can be a real battle — particularly in our, “You Deserve a Treat Today” / “You Owe it to Yourself” society.    The war is that much harder to fight if you have FOOD ADDICTIONS.  But fortunately, every cloud has a silver lining.

As tough as it may be to make the initial changes required to get off the MEDICAL MERRY-GO-ROUND, it’s one of the singularly most important things you’ll ever do.  And as hard as doing the right thing can be for the first week or two, rest assured, it gets easier.  I’ve simplified things for you, creating a post that will help point you to solutions, whether your problem is CHRONIC PAIN, CHRONIC INFLAMMATORY DISEASES, one of the numerous AUTOIMMUNE DISEASES, or as is often the case, a combination of all three.  The cool thing is, there’s nothing to buy, and I my site does not sell anything.  Let me show you an email exchange that happened just a few days ago (this is actually a combination of two different patient’s emails with similar problems).

• PATIENT:  Dear Dr. Schierling, After reading your webpage I was short of buying a plane ticket to come see you. Your page brought tears to my eyes. I had my first L3-L5 fusion several years ago.   About 2 weeks post-surgery, I was leaning over to put a dish in the dishwasher, when, the area over the illiac crest bone graft site “popped.”  I tried to cycle in the months following, and my right buttock and SI joint hurt severely with every push.  Finally, six months later, my surgeon opened me back up to ‘take a look’ and said I had “a gluteus maximus tear”.   Even with the “repair,” I have continued to have chronic pain leading me to a complete redo by a Neurosurgeon of L3-L5.  After all of this, I continued with the chronic right SI and bone graft site pain with numerous injections and lots of pain meds. I have continued to try to cycle along with light resistance training, golf, and walking my dog but not without pain or paying dearly for it the next day. You can imagine how debilitating chronic pain is; it steals your life and affects every aspect of my daily living!  Flash forward to last year when my right hip and right groin pain added to my already chronic pain that lead to a right total hip replacement due to a labral tear and DJD.  As a result, I also had an SI fusion procedure. You must be thinking by now, wow, she’s had a lot of “stuff.”  And, I have!  Another kicker is, I partially tore a hamstring in my left hip a few weeks ago during a golf lesson.  Then with an MRI it was discovered I had the tear along with “tendonosis” bilaterally.  On top of all this, I have IBS, Hashimoto’s, and Interstitial Cystitis……….

• DR. RUSS:   The very first thing you have to understand is that your problem is likely “SYSTEMIC” (or HERE).  Make sure to read my material on IBS, HASHIMOTO’S THYROIDITIS, and INTERSTITIAL CYSTITIS as well.  My goal is to save you traveling here if you don’t need to.  Sincerely, Dr. Russ

• PATIENT:   Dr. Russ, Thank you for replying to my email so quickly!  I am going to make the changes you talk about on your site. If I don’t see any improvement over the next 30 days, I will talk to you about a trip to come see you.  Thank you again!  

What did I recommend?  She’s going to try and deal with some of the underlying INFLAMMATION by following the information in THIS POST.  She’s got NOTHING TO LOSE and everything to gain.  Health is one of those precious commodities that we too often take for granted.  But when it’s gone, it can turn our lives inside out.  My advice to you would be to make the sacrifices to get healthy now.  You’ll thank yourself later!