Your bad back or arthritic knee

What to do about your bad back or arthritic knee. Peo­ple with chronic pain are twice as likely to suffer from depres­sion and anxiety as those with out. What starts in your lower back eventually eats away at your soul. You enjoy your loved ones less, and you are less enjoy­able to them. If pain affects body, mind and spirit, then treatment must address these three pillars of the human condition.

Unless there is acute nerve damage, pain can't be mea­sured by traditional diagnostic tools. Physicians can predict a pain diagnosis related to in­jury but are otherwise work­ing largely in the dark, reliant on patient narrative. If you're seeing a doctor for your pain and the problem has not been resolved after six months of treatment, get a second opinion from a specialist. All doctors learn rudimentary pain man­agement in medical school, but few are trained fully at diagnosing it. 

Exercise and stretching can often help alleviate pain. Medications such as anti-inflammatory (the ibuprofen family), opioids and anti depressants are effective in the short term, but there are wor­ries about long-term use. Pain-relief medication is one of the most abused areas of the phar­macopoeia. More extreme interventions—surgery, cortisone shots, nerve blockers and local anesthetics—should be explored as a last resort.

One of the best imports from Eastern medicine— acupuncture—comes from a time before ibuprofen and Bengay. Not everyone agrees on how acupuncture works, but physicians believe it activates endorphin systems, and many consider it a highly effective complementary therapy.