Studies have shown that obese patients have more problems with musculoskeletal pain than the general population (http://bit.ly/Hh3usQ). Obesity and pain show a strong relationship even when insulin resistance, inflammation, and pain-related comorbidities are accounted for (http://1.usa.gov/17jGHqj).
A study of 215 fibromyalgia (FMS) patients found that obese patients had greater pain sensitivity, poorer sleep quality, and reduced physical strength and flexibility (http://bit.ly/18TVYy4). If you are in pain and overweight, losing weight may help reduce your symptoms. Though this can be achieved through simply taking in fewer calories than you expend, studies have shown that diet and exercise are significantly more effective together than either intervention alone (http://bit.ly/1ezkOEP).
Adjusting your lifestyle doesn’t have to be drastic! Start by making healthy swaps in your diet: try replacing white bread with whole wheat bread, or try using olive oil or canola oil instead of butter. Pick up a fruit or vegetable that you wouldn’t normally buy and figure out ways to incorporate it into your meals for the week.
Exercise habits can evolve with a little time and effort. If you normally walk five blocks in one day, see if you can increase that to six or seven. Though weight training can be beneficial in building muscle strength and bone density, aerobic exercise is more likely to be helpful if your goal is weight loss. Simply increasing your physical activity and making smarter food choices can help you lose weight and decrease your pain.
Filed under: pain management
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I’ve done a lot of anesthesia for bariatric surgery cases, and it has struck me often that obese patients seem to have heightened sensitivity to pain. This can be something as simple as an IV placement, or postoperative pain. It makes me wonder if there is an inflammatory process or something else going on with obesity. Does a patient like this tend to interpret simple hunger as a sensation more akin to pain? A hunger pang that might be ignored by another person, perhaps who’s busy with other tasks, could possibly be interpreted by the obese patient as a crisis requiring immediate treatment with food intake? I don’t pretend to know the answer, but these are interesting questions.
Lower pain thresholds are reported in studies of obese patients (http://bit.ly/1b4nYy0). Although no conclusions can be made concerning heightened sensitivity to hunger, some studies point to increased attention to food, and others note differences in brain activity between obese and lean patients (http://bit.ly/1dKOFdk).