November 7, 2007

12:10: The Health Roundup with Jay, Jamie and Jimmy.

12:20: Let’’s get fit!
Guest: Ernie Schramayr over at All Canadian Fitness.

12:35: Members of the Ontario Nurses’’ Association have overwhelmingly re-elected Linda Haslam-Stroud as their president! She’’s a renal transplant nurse at St. Joseph’’s Healthcare Hamilton and has been involved with the ONA since 1980! It’’s great to have a local nurse heading up the ONA in such a health care oriented city. We’’ll have a general chat about the state-of-nursing in the city & province.
Guest: Linda Haslam-Stroud, freshly re-elected ONA President.

12:45: DayNight Pharmacy session.
Guest: Irene.
National Pain Awareness Week !

What is Chronic Pain? While acute pain is a normal sensation triggered in the nervous system to alert you to possible injury and the need to take care of yourself, chronic pain is different. Chronic pain persists. Pain signals keep on firing in the nervous system for weeks, months even years. Chronic pain may be due to an accident, sprained back or serious infection. It may also be caused by arthritis, cancer, ear infection but chronic pain can also be present even when there is an absence of any past injury or evidence of body damage. Common chronic pain complaints are headaches, low back, cancer arthritis and neurogenic pain. Chronic pain can generate other adverse conditions like depression and anxiety. Chronic patients are often misdiagnosed. Patients are often ignored and their pain is dismissed as imaginary. Patients particularly the ones prescribed opioids, are often labeled. Many people with chronic pain can be helped if they understand all the causes of pain and the many and varied steps that can be taken to undo what chronic pain has done. Scientists believe that advances in neuroscience will lead to more and better treatments for chronic pain in the years to come. Is there treatment? medications, acupuncture, local electrical stimulation, brain stimulation as well as surgery are just a few options. Psychotherapy, relaxation and medication therapies, biofeedback and behavior modification may also be employed to treat chronic pain.