Beauty And Health

At first, babies just scream and yell. They are attention seekers and want us to come tend to their needs. As they grow bigger and get a sense of how they can interact with the world, they come to understand some sensations are pleasurable (hence the chuckles and gurgles) and some are painful (hence more screaming and yelling). As parents, it’s our job to encourage the happy experiences not involving loud protests and to make the pain go away. If we fail at the latter, we will have children, teens and adults that flinch at every touch and run to the nearest emergency room whenever there’s even a hint of discomfort. No matter what you may think of the primitive days before television, people were harder and prepared to work through pain. Today, everyone is bombarded with ads for painkillers and reaches for the pill bottle whenever pain is threatened.

So what exactly is pain? This is one of those survival characteristics hard-wired into our bodies by our genes. In fact, when you think about it, there’s a kind of magic at work. How many times have you been close to burning your hand, reaching for something too hot, only to find your hand moving out of range before you were aware of any risk? This is the power of the nervous system. It transmits messages faster than thought and, before anything filters through to our consciousness, the body has instinctively moved itself. These nerves know exactly where the danger is and can tell you exactly where you have been injured. Everyone would be delighted except for one small problem. It does not come with an off-switch. So rather like the burglar alarm that rings through the night on the foreclosed property next to yours, the pain messages keep on coming even though you have done all you can to treat the cause.

Doctors divide pain into two basic types based on time. The first is acute where you will make a complete recovery. This is like an accidental injury where you cut yourself or break a bone. After treatment, healing will begin. The second is chronic where the pain will be long-lasting. The reason for making this distinction is because of the psychology involved. When you know you will recover, it’s reasonably easy to stay positive and work through the physical therapy and rehabilitation exercises until you are recovered. But, when you know the pain is not going away, this is immediately depressing. Indeed, many doctors treat people with antidepressants when the damage to the body is not going to heal. This reflects the reality that unless the mind is engaged and positive, it will amplify every twinge and make the entire pain experience worse. If people are to avoid becoming permanent invalids, they must learn how to live with the pain. Only then can they have a reasonable quality of life. There will be a place for Ultram use whether the pain is acute or chronic. This is one of the world’s most reliable painkillers. But when it comes to the treatment of chronic pain, you do not want to be dependent on Ultram to get through every day remaining in your life. You need a different approach.

This is an unfortunate and chronic disease currently affecting about 2% of the US population – a large number of people, the majority of those affected being women. The symptoms are easy to describe in widely distributed pain in the body’s musculature, affecting not only the muscles, but also the tendons and ligaments. The relative disability is made worse by the constant feeling of exhaustion. It’s a vicious cycle. Because of the pain, sleep is disrupted. When people wake not feeling refreshed, their mood darkens. They seem to feel the pain more. So the next night, their sleep is even less. The main difficulty is the continuing failure to explain what causes the pain. The level of discomfort is aggravated by pressure on the joints, particularly the shoulders, rib cage and the hips. None of the researchers working on this disease have an explanation for this. So there’s no accepted treatment although there are patterns of drug use that seem to be emerging.

There are two general approaches. One focuses on the neurotransmitters. This is comparable to the treatment for depression, assuming that either painkillers or changes to the brain’s messaging system may relieve the main symptoms. Indeed, there are some doctors who suggest fibromyalgia is not a physical disease but a psychological disorder, and simply prescribe SNRI antidepressants. Whether this view is correct hardly matters. With this strategy, the attitude of patients towards the pain changes and many do report an improvement in the quality of life.

The second approach involves the use of muscle relaxers like Carisoprodol. In one sense, this is not a different strategy because the relaxants have a sedative effect, improve sleep and so lift the mood. However, has been proving more popular because, used in short bursts to limit the risk of dependence, Carisoprodol reduces the tensions in the muscles without causing the same levels of drowsiness affecting the use of other drugs. Indeed, used under proper medical supervision, there are real improvements with fewer side effects than arise when treatment focuses on antidepressants and serotonin-related drugs.

The law is very clear both in the US and Europe. If your product has not been through the proper regulatory approval process, the manufacturer is not allowed to make false advertising claims. In theory, this means we are not swamped with ads claiming products will give us perfect skin, stop our hair from falling out and make us as slim as some of these models we see in magazines. In practice, the regulators play wack-a-mole. A company springs into life making outrageous claims for Product A with magic ingredient X which forces hair to regrow faster than the grass in your yard. The regulators notice some months later and issue a notice. The company has then dissolved and a new company has appeared with the product having been rebranded with a new miracle ingredient before the regulator has had chance to enforce the notice.

A classic example of this is currently being played out in Europe. Nutrilinks is a Swiss company it is has been claiming that some of its products reinforce hair strength and contribute to reducing hair loss. The European Food Safety Authority asked for evidence of this claim, it found the replies unsatisfactory. It is now forcing the company to stop the advertising claims. With new claims being made on a continual basis for different ‘new’ ingredients, this is just the latest in a long running saga.

If you want to protect yourself, you should only buy products which have been through the drug testing regimes. This involves supervised clinical trials involving thousands of participants. Only when the drugs are found to deliver provable benefits are they allowed on the market. Obviously, this is an expensive process and inconveniently can prove the products are useless. So many manufacturers prefer to game the system and hope to get enough sales relying on false or misleading ads. In reality, propecia pills has been approved by the FDA and, when you read its marketing copy claiming that it stops hair loss, this carries a government-backed guarantee. Not one of the health, herbal or other products that claim to stop hair loss have any evidence to support their claims. Only propecia which is also sold as Finasteride can legally make the claim.