Relieving the Pain
"Exercise may be thebest treatment of chronic pain,"say doctors at a new clinic for dealingwith pain "People with chronic pain n, eed to stop lying around, go out more, and start exercising. "The instinctivereac- tion to acute pain is to stop moving and to try to protect the source ofpain_ But it seems that this is often not productive,especially in the case ofback pain Back pain,after headaches and tiredness, has become the third mostcommon reason for people to visit their doctors. Painful backs now account formillions of days off work.
Lumbar(腰部的)pains are partly theprice humans pay for taking their forelimbs off the ground, but they aremade worse by a sedentary(久坐不动的 ) lifestyle. Lack of exercise slowly decreases the flexibility andstrength of muscles, so that it is more difficult to take pressure off the siteof pain. Exer- cise is essential. It releases endorphins(内啡肽), the body's "feel-good"chemicals,which are natural painkillers. In fact. these are so important that researchersare now looking for drugs that can maintain a comfortable level of endorphinsin the body.
Most people who go to afamily doctor complaining of pain are prescribed pain=killing drugs rather thanexercise. Since finding the cause of backache is not so easy,doctors frequentlydo not know the precise cause of the discomfort,and as the pain continues,sufferers end up taking stronger doses or a series of different drugs."It's crazy, "says Dr. Brasseur,a therapist at the InternationalAssociation for the Study of Pain. "Some of them are taking different drugsprescribed by different doctors. I've just seen a patient who was taking two drugs which turned out to be the samething under different names.
A generation of new painclinics now operates on the basis that drugs are best avoided. Once pa- tients have undergone the initial physical andpsychological check up, their medication is cut down as much as possible. Taking patients off drugsalso prepares them for physical activity.
Insome pain-relief clinics,patients begin the day with muscle contraction andrelaxation exercises, followed by anhour on exercise bikes. Later in the day, they practice tai chi(太极) , self-defense, and deepthought. This compares with an average of two-and-a-half hours' physiotherapy（理疗）a week in a traditional hospital program. "The idea is to strengthen and toincrease long-lasting energy,flexibility, and confidence,"explains Bill Wiles, a consultant pain doctor in Liverpool. "Patients undergoing this therapy get back to work and resume healthyactive lifestyles much sooner than those subjected to more conservative treatment.”
To treat pain,patients should stop moving around