Cannabis may be able to Kill the Pain without getting 'stoned'.

Cannabis to Stop the Pain

Great if it could get rib of that pain.  Here is a great article that may lead the way to using the recreational drug cannabis for pain treatment.

By Andy Coghlan April 2011

An ingenious set of experiments has teased apart the mind-altering and pain-relieving effects of the main component of cannabis. This could open the way to cannabis-like drugs that provide pain relief without causing unwanted highs.

Cannabis is taken as a painkiller – to dull pain in cancer for example – but it can produce unpleasant side effects such as hallucinations and impaired mobility.

Now, a team led by Li Zhang of the US National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism in Bethesda, Maryland, has shown that tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) – the active component in cannabis that makes people high but that is also thought to dull pain – binds to different molecular targets on cells to produce these two effects.

It has long been known that THC gives people a high by binding to a molecular anchor on cells called the cannabinoid type-1 (CB1) receptor. Zhang and his team discovered that THC relieves pain by binding instead to receptors for the brain-signalling compound glycine and increasing their activity.

Through experiments on mice, they then confirmed that if the glycine receptor is absent or if its activity is blocked by another drug, the animals experienced pain in a standard "tail-flick" test even when given THC, confirming that the drug's pain-relief and psychotropic effects can be decoupled.

Target receptor

"We found that this glycine receptor could be a primary target for developing non-psychoactive forms of cannabis," says Lhang.

"This is an important breakthrough in the long-sought separation of intoxicant effects of THC from its desired medical effects," says Les Iversen at the University of Oxford in the UK, who studies the effects of marijuana.

However, Stephen Wright, director of research and development for GW Pharmaceuticals in Porton Down, UK, thinks that there are other ways that cannabis-based medicines may be able to provide pain relief without the side effects. Last year the firm launched a cannabis-based medicine in Europe called Sativex to dampen painful muscle spasms in patients with multiple sclerosis.

Wright says that no persistent psychotic effects have been seen with the product, partly because it is released into the body 20 to 40 times more slowly than THC is released when cannabis is smoked. As well as THC, GW's preparation contains cannabidiol, a component of marijuana thought to dampen psychotic reactions to THC.

No psychotic effects been seen in the US, where Sativex is being trialled to combat pain in cancer patients.

Canadian Medical Association Journal

 

Meditation used to help with pain.

Meditation as a Pain Treatment.

Part 2 of an excellent article.

By MyHealthNewsDaily staff writer Amanda Chan 

"According to the researchers, 15 healthy volunteers were subjected to painful heat for five minutes from a device attached to their leg while they underwent arterial spin labeling magnetic resonance imaging, a type of brain scan that shows long durations of brain processes.

The scans revealed high activity in the primary somatosensory cortex, a brain region that determines the source and severity of pain.

Then the volunteers attended four 20-minute classes to learn a meditation technique called focused attention, which trained them to focus on breathing and to dismiss other thoughts or emotions.

After the meditation training, the study participants were again subjected to the painful heat on their leg while undergoing the brain scans. The scans revealed a decrease in activity in the primary somatosensory cortex and an increase in the activity in three regions that shape how the body experiences pain: the anterior cingulate cortex, anterior insula and the orbito-frontal cortex.

The ratings that the study participants assigned to the pain decreased 40 percent after they attended the meditation training sessions.

Acute pain and chronic pain

The findings show that meditation affects multiple regions in the brain to relieve pain sensations, said Alex Zautra, a psychology professor at Arizona State University who was not involved with the study.

Changes in breathing rate or heart function didn't account for the differences in pain ratings from before the meditation training to after it, so "changes in attention deployment made possible through training in mindfulness appear to have been the primary mechanism here," Zautra told MyHealthNewsDaily.

People at highest risk for acute pain, including firefighters, police officers and members of the military, stand to benefit the most from these studies, he said.

However, further study is needed before meditation is encouraged as a primary solution for chronic pain, Zautra said. 

Some people with chronic pain, like those who have fibromyalgia, may need additional treatment beyond meditation to soothe symptoms, he said.

Zautra authored a study, published last year in the journal Pain, that showed that breathing exercises could decrease pain sensations in healthy women. However, the results were mixed for women with fibromyalgia; only the women who had positive outlooks on life reported decreased pain sensations, his study showed.

Pass it on: Brain scans reveal that meditation can reduce sensations of pain.

Follow MyHealthNewsDaily staff writer Amanda Chan on Twitter @AmandaLChan.

10 great tips to help with arthritis pain.

10 Great Tips to help with arthritis pain.

1.  It is better to slide things along the kitchen bench.  Lifting is something to aviod.

2.  Use a clothes peg to seal plastic bags. Much better than using twist ties etc.

3.  Why not put your soap in a stocking and put it around the shower taps.  You can use the soap when it is in the stockings but if you drop it you don't have to bend down and pick it up.

4.  Peeling veggies is a pain if you suffer arthritis in the hands.  Why peel? Wash them well. Better for you!

5. When lifting or carrying try holding the objects closer to your body.

6.  Try getting out of your chair when the commercials are on tv.  Sitting in the one position for too long is not good.

7.  If you feel pain don't try and work through it.  It can make tyour joints get worse.

8.  Your taps should be the lever type.

9.  Try wrapping handles with sponge or rubber to make it softer and your hands and it will also give your a large area to grip.

10. When doing the dishes, use a sponge as they are alot easier to squeeze out than the cloth variety

Hope these hint will help you with your arthritis pain.  Good health 

Pain Treatment. Using foods and herbs for back pain

Using food and herbs for back pain.

Found an article sprooking the benefits of certain herbs and food in the treatment of back pain.  Walnuts and mussels were the foods mentioned and chamomile and garlic chives were the herbs suggested.

Arnica and rosemary are the herbs for muscle pain.  I would imagine used topically and myrrh being some help with arthritis pain.

Arthritis Pain Treatment.

I always swear by apple cider vinegar with honey in warm water daily as a must to arthritis pain treatment.  Here are a few tips to managing your pain.

Firstly see your doctor regularly to discuss any side effects to medication and form a treatment plan which you should adhere to.

When you get tired rest.  Listen to your body and try to spread out physical ativities throughout the day.

Look after you joints by using  specially designed tools for difficult tasks like opening jars.  Better still ask someone elso to do it for you.

Don't stress out.  Discuss this with your Dr.  They can give you so many alternatives for stress management.

Fruit flies used in Pain Treatment research.

Pain Treatment developed from testing fruit flies.

A new gene has been found which helps to control the sense of pain, may very well help develope new pain treatment for those who suffer chronic pain.

This gene linked to synaesthesia, a condition that leads to sensations of one kind being perceived as another. Words or numbers might be perceived as colours – the number 7 as the colour yellow – or colours could be heard as music.

Dr Greg Neely, a recently-appointed researcher at Sydney’s Garvan Institute of Medical Research, led the project with Professor Josef Penninger, while at the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna. The research is published in the current issue of Cell.

The research team screened the genome of fruit flies to investigate pain perception – in particular, the insects’ response to heat-induced pain.

After identifying 600 pain associated genes, the researchers honed in on one gene in particular, known as α2δ3, a gene shared with mice and people. The gene seemed to hold promise because it triggered the same cellular mechanisms as some existing painkillers.

American collaborators examined variations of the α2δ3 gene in people and found that one particular variation not only reduced sensitivity to acute pain, but also made patients much less likely to have chronic lower back pain.

Using functional MRI scanners to look at the brains of mice with mutant α2δ3 genes revealed that the gene controls the way heat pain signals are processed in the brain.  Read moreabout this pain treatment
htp://www.garvan.org.au/news-events/news/could-our-experience-of-pain-become-the-sound-of-music.html

Shoulder Pain for Tennis No.2

News from Yahoo.
Shoulder Pain for Tennis No. 2
INDIAN WELLS, California, March 13 (Reuters) - A lingering shoulder problem has given world number two Kim Clijsters increased cause for concern with the WTA Tour's claycourt season fast approaching.
The Belgian has been taking pain killers to cope with a pinched shoulder since before she won her fourth grand slam title at the Australian Open in January.
After losing to Czech Petra Kvitova in last month's Paris Open final, Clijsters had hoped to regain full fitness while taking a break of almost four weeks from competition.
"I had treatment on it while I was off, and it felt fine," the 27-year-old told reporters after beating Italy's Sara Errani 6-3 2-6 6-4 in the third round of the Indian Wells WTA tournament on Sunday.
"When I'm not training it feels fine but as I got into hitting a little bit more again, it slowly just flared up a little bit."  Read more.