How Certain Foods Can Increase Chronic Pain

Some days your pain is a distant, nagging thing, but other days you’re not so lucky and it’s front and center. The nature of pain is complex and, unfortunately, all too many people are having to navigate a constant roller coaster of chronic pain.

To put some numbers to this, consider the eye-opening fact that nearly a quarter of all adults in the United States report chronic pain.

As board-certified pain management experts, the directors of Apex Pain Specialists — Dr. Naveen Reddy and Dr. Maziar Massrour — uniquely understand the complexity of chronic pain. 

While we have the expertise and treatments patients need to address the discomfort, there are steps that you can take to minimize the impact and severity of your pain. One of those steps is watching what you eat.

Understanding pain and inflammation

There are many different roads to chronic pain, such as arthritis, herniated discs, sports injuries, and degenerative disc disease (DDD). No matter what’s fueling your pain, you can expect that inflammation is going to play a role.

When it comes to healing, your body typically cycles through four stages, including:

1. Stasis: stopping any bleeding
2. Inflammation to protect the area while it heals
3. Cell proliferation to repair damaged tissues
4. Final remodeling of the damaged areas

With chronic pain, people are often stuck in the second phase, inflammation. Or, many people with chronic pain have degenerative conditions that are going in the opposite direction of healing (think osteoarthritis, which is progressive). This means that any damage that your body repairs is quickly replaced by new damage, trapping people in a degenerative cycle of pain.

As a result of this, the very thing that’s supposed to help you heal — inflammation — ends up only exacerbating your pain. For example, inflammation can irritate sensitive nerves in your body, which then leads to more pain.

Reducing inflammation to reduce your pain

For patients who are dealing with chronic pain, it’s important to get out of the inflammatory cycle and your diet can help with this.

There are certain foods that can lead to systemic inflammation in your body and this is a condition that you want to avoid when you’re struggling with chronic pain. These foods include:

• Anything with high amounts of added sugars or high fructose corn syrup, such as sodas, candy, desserts, and sugary cereals
• Refined carbs, which are found in white bread, white pastas, and baked goods
• Foods that are high in saturated fats, such as red meat
• Fried foods, which increases fat content
• Alcohol

Going in a more productive direction, let’s look at foods that support healing without chronic inflammation, which boils down to the Mediterranean diet, including:

• Lean protein, such as fish, turkey and chicken
• Vegetables and fruits and the less processed the better (raw veggies and fruits are best)
• Whole grains instead of refined ones, such as whole wheat
• Nuts - walnuts are especially beneficial
• Healthy fats found in olive oil and avocados
• Healthy dairy, such as yogurt, kefir, and cottage cheese
• Eggs
• Beans and lentils

If you’d like a more detailed look at the Mediterranean diet, check out this link.

As an added bonus, when you switch over to an anti-inflammatory diet, you’re also boosting your health on every other level, such as your all-important cardiovascular health.

So, between the pain management efforts here at our practice and your healthier eating habits at home, there’s a lot that we can do to help you better navigate your chronic pain.

If you have more questions about the best diet for chronic pain, we’re here to help. Simply call our office in Chandler, Arizona, at 480-820-7246 today to schedule a visit. You can also use our online booking tool to request a consultation.