Kathryn Merrow | SIMPLE PAIN RELIEF with Kathryn Merrow, the Pain Relief Coach

Ice and Simple Pain Relief – How to use Ice

Ice or heat for pain relief?

Ice can help you heal and get rid of your pain much more quickly than heat. My friend Bette will share her experience with you. Bette was an endocrine specialist. She LOVES ice!

Here’s what Bette said about ice therapy:

Muscle problems tend to accompany endocrine issues, especially adrenal glands that can’t or won’t keep up.

Our muscles get inflamed and “knotted up,” worse on some days than others.

Accupressure massage helps, but few therapists do it right. Several therapists have had at my back. Some felt like they were tickling me; some bruised my muscles and left me sore for days. Only one, the physical therapist who treated me when I lived in Tucson, made a real difference. He’s a magician, but most aren’t.

Doctors usually advise hot baths–the exact wrong thing to do. Heat just inflames muscles all the more.

I know, I know. Heat feels really good. Problem is, all the while it’s feeling good, it’s making things worse.

Answer me this: A half hour or so after you get out of a hot bath or the Jacuzzi, are your muscles better or worse? And how much progress have you made with your muscle pain since you started treating yourself with heat?

A lot of people, especially men and senior citizens for some reason, won’t even consider giving up hot soaks, fully persuaded that some day they’ll work, and all the pain will disappear. It reminds me of when Continue reading “Ice and Simple Pain Relief – How to use Ice”

June 7August 3

Stiff Neck? 3 Natural Steps to Get Your Neck Moving Again

Did you wake up with a stiff neck?

It’s amazing the crazy things we can do to ourselves in our sleep!

Sleeping with your neck tilted forward, or to one side or the other, can cause your muscles to get unhappy and become tight or go into a spasm.

Being in one position for a long time without moving (like sitting with your head turned toward someone) can aggravate your neck muscles, too.

A hard jarring sneeze or cough can cause a stiff neck, and this may be even more uncomfortable than the one that comes during your sleep. An accident that whips your head from side to side or front to back might cause pain in your neck, too.

When the muscles go into spasm, or seize up and keep you from moving your neck, that can be a protective step by your body to prevent injury.

Be mindful as you apply the following steps and pay attention to what your body is telling you. If something doesn’t feel appropriate, don’t do it.

Here are the 3 natural steps you can take to help your neck relax:

1. Use heat on the muscles on the tops of your shoulders. You can also apply heat to your upper chest and upper back. If heat is not the best treatment for you to use, you’ll be able to tell; you’ll feel slightly worse afterward. If you use a hot shower, direct the water to your upper back, tops of shoulders (each separately) and the front of your upper chest and neck.

2. Use ice on the muscles at the back of your neck. Also, wrap the ice pack around your neck to benefit the muscles on the sides and front. It may feel like the pain is in the back of your neck, but there’s a good chance that all of the neck muscles are involved. Some muscles run from your collar bone to the back of your head. If you only have a small ice pack, your muscles will just have to take turns!

The rule of thumb is: Heat for tight muscles and ice for nervy symptoms.

Since a stiff neck may involve the nerves in your neck, go for ice around your whole neck and upper chest toward the middle. Ice will relax the muscles and also helps numb the pain.

3. Gently, slowly move your neck into Continue reading “Stiff Neck? 3 Natural Steps to Get Your Neck Moving Again”

May 22November 7

The Sitting Disease

It’s a serious problem, and lots and lots of us are affected by it! The Sitting Disease is caused by…too much sitting!

All that sitting causes lots of muscle and body malfunctions and aches and pains and premature aging.

Knots in your back, problems breathing, constipation, carpal tunnel syndrome, osteoporosis, back pain and headaches and MORE are caused by “The Sitting Disease.”

It’s practically an epidemic! But there is a simple, natural cure.

Walk.

Can’t get much more simple than that, right?

When you walk correctly, you use almost all of the muscles in your whole body! Pretty cool.

My friend, Rosalie, had the sitting disease. At first, she could only walk around her own back yard and then, eventually, around the block. And then she ended up race walking and had a ton of health benefits!

All from walking, even though she didn’t want to, and from gradually ‘stepping up’ her walking distance as her ability increased. 🙂

May 6November 7

3 Common Causes of Aging and the Pain of “Old Age”

You’ve seen people who are only 40 who already look “old.” And you’ve probably seen folks in their 80’s or 90’s who still have a spring in their step or a sparkle in their eyes.

Why do some of us grow old so quickly and other stay youthful?

Here are 3 reasons:

1. Attitude. Optimists may not always have the most realistic outlook, but they live longer, healthier lives than pessimists and enjoy living more. Attitude can be learned and unlearned. A healthy attitude includes gratitude and happiness.

2. Nutrition. People who give their bodies all the nutrients it needs are much more likely to be healthy and feel better longer. This gets harder and harder as more of our “food” comes from factories rather than farms and gardens, but it CAN be done. The best place to buy your groceries is in the produce section, and if possible, the best ones to buy are organic. Try to eat a lot of different colored foods (and Froot Loops don’t count.)

3. Posture. When you lose the fight to gravity, and gravity is winning, your heavy head moves in front of your body. Then, gravity can pull you forward even more! Your posture can be corrected, at least enough to relieve some of your pain. Posture is a BIG key in aging. When you collapse forward, your organs gets squashed. How can your heart function its best when it is being compressed? How can your intestines and stomach do their best job? This is a common cause of constipation. You can overcome poor posture by stretching the muscles in the front of your body and strengthening the muscles in the back.

George Burns, the comedian, said: “It’s okay to get older, as long as you don’t get old.” I’m sticking with George!

May 5November 7

When Muscle Pain Won’t Go Away, Look For Trigger Points

If you have muscle pain or other symptoms that just aren’t going away with conventional (medical) treatment or with massage therapy, there’s a reason.

The reason could very well be “trigger points.”

Here’s an example: Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is very often caused by trigger points in your muscles. The trigger points in this case are in the neck, upper chest, front of the arm and lower arm. They “fire,” or refer, pain into the area of the carpal tunnel in the wrist.

A “syndrome” is a collection of symptoms.

Symptoms are things like pain, numbness, tingling. If you can get rid of the symptoms, or the causes (triggers) of the symptoms, you get rid of the syndrome, too.

Trigger points are hyper-irritable (very irritated or crabby) areas of muscle. Trigger points can also be found in other soft tissues like skin and organs. Soft tissues are everything except our bones.

What do trigger points do?

They cause pain and symptoms in other parts of the body, sometimes at a far distance from the trigger point. This is called “referred” pain.

We ALL have the potential to have them, because we all have soft tissues.

When a nagging pain or symptom won’t go away with treatment, that most likely means that a trigger point is causing the pain and needs to be released.

Whatever caused the trigger point also needs to be corrected. Everything has a cause!

When I was making my notes for a recent Carpal Tunnel Radio show, I noticed a relationship between Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and trigger points: All of the things that cause trigger points also cause Carpal Tunnel Syndrome! And, so it is with a lot of our body pain.

A great deal of our pain and other uncomfortable symptoms are caused by trigger points.

Trigger points and muscles are largely overlooked by the medical community (your doctor) as a cause of pain. It’s just not widely taught in medical schools. In fact, very few doctors understand the roles of muscles in pain syndromes and fewer still understand trigger points.

Here are some of the things that cause (create) trigger points:

* abnormal bone structure that Continue reading “When Muscle Pain Won’t Go Away, Look For Trigger Points”

April 30November 7

Migraine Headache Help – 7 Simple Pain Relief Tips for Your Migraines

The best thing to do for a migraine is not to let it start!

There are many things we can do to prevent migraines, at least a lot of the time. In the meantime, if you have a migraine, or feel one coming on, here are some tips to help you feel better.

As you know, aspirin generally doesn’t do a thing for a migraine headache. However, there are 2 over-the-counter remedies that might help.

1. Aleve (or its’ generic, naproxin) may work for you if you take a dose (1 or 2 tablets) at the onset–follow the directions on the label. In 2019 or so, it became added to sumatriptan prescription medication. That also caused the cost of the prescription to go up a ton, so just add it separately yourself if you take sumatriptan.

2. Alka Seltzer may work, because it gives you a fully-dissolved dose of aspirin all at once. Follow directions on the label.

Here are some other simple pain relief remedies to try:

1. If the muscles on the tops of your shoulders are all “jammed up,” try a heating pad or heated cloth bag filled with rice to relax your shoulders.

2. Lie down with an ice pack or cold pack comfortably positioned under your neck and the base of your skull. Place a cold, wet cloth over your eyes. If the cloth warms up, keep a basin of cool water next to your bed to refresh it.

If the cloth is drippy, that’s fine. It’s actually good, because the cold drips will affect more of the nerves and muscles on your head. Just put a plastic bag and towel under your head and shoulders to catch the drips.

3. Don’t be shy about pushing or pulling on the muscles around your ears, temples, forehead, back of your head, or anywhere you can reach. Sometimes the migraine is from the inside out, and sometimes it’s from the outside in.

4. Pull your hair. The soft tissues around your whole head get tight with a migraine. By clasping your fingers in your hair, close to your head, and pulling outward, you can use your hair as little levers to help relax your scalp muscles.

5. Try to straighten up. Your heavy head pulls on the muscles around your neck and shoulders when it’s in front of your body and can cause head pain. If you can lift your chest, your head will move back and be more over your body and take some of the strain off your muscles & nerves. Do this when you DON’T have a headache or migraine, too.

Here’s hoping that at least one of these tips will help you have less migraine pain. And I wrote an easy-to-use book for you to help get rid of or reduce those miserable headaches and migraines naturally.

April 30November 7

Yoga and Headaches – 6 Ways Yoga Gets Rid of Head Pain

How can yoga help relieve your headaches? Oh, let me count the ways:

It relaxes the muscles around your chest, ribs, shoulders and neck. These are the same muscles that get tight and cause headache symptoms.
Yoga helps reduce your stress. When you’re feeling all stressed, your muscles “clamp down” on nerves that go to your head.
It helps strengthen the muscles of your backside and makes you long and strong; it creates muscular balance. A strong back and a long, strong body helps you have good posture. Good posture, with your head over your body instead of out in front, reduces headaches.
Yoga gets your circulation moving and that helps move the metabolic (body) wastes out of your body. It reduces swelling which can also be a cause for head pain.
It helps you become more “in tune” with your body. When your muscles start to complain or your head starts to hurt, you will be able to figure out the cause and correct it.
Yoga can help reduce your blood pressure, but if you are having high blood pressure headaches, you’d better get to a doctor immediately!

Yoga is a full-body stretching and strengthening movement program with a lot of benefits.

If you take a class, always remember: It’s your body. If a move doesn’t feel appropriate to you, or feels like it will make your head hurt or your headache feel worse, DON’T DO IT. Instead, practice a different movement (pose) or breathing.

So, yoga helps take the pressure off the muscles around your head and neck, and helps you relax, and reduces stress, and improves your breathing (shallow breathing could also be a cause of your headaches by not giving you enough oxygen.)

That’s how yoga can help you get rid of your headaches.

Here’s another way I can help you get rid of your migraines and headaches: Head Pain Natural Relief

April 23November 7

Chronic Back Pain and Muscle Strain – Is There a Simple Pain Relief Answer?

You are not alone. Millions of people suffer from chronic back pain.

Sometimes your back pain is caused by something that you do.

Other times, it’s caused by something you DON’T do. Okay, I’ll be totally honest:

There are a LOT of reasons for chronic back pain. It could be caused by:

Foods that causes inflammation (swelling in your muscles and soft tissues.)
Additives (chemicals & toxins) that are in your food.
Vitamin & mineral deficiencies.
Artificial sweeteners (chemicals & toxins) (Oops! Did I already say that?)
Muscles that are “out of balance.” That means muscles on one part of your body are not in balance with the muscles that oppose them. Some of your muscles are “too tight” and some are not strong enough to keep you where nature designed you to be. This creates muscle strain.
Injury to a muscle or area of soft tissue from incorrect use or an accident.
Anger and sadness; strong negative emotions.

Let’s just stick to muscle strain here. We can talk about the other causes at a different time.

Can muscle strain can be caused by doing things over and over?

Yes, and especially when the same movement is done over and over again incorrectly.

Here’s an example:

I was at the airport and I was watching the men who Continue reading “Chronic Back Pain and Muscle Strain – Is There a Simple Pain Relief Answer?”

April 23November 7

Why Do We Have Pain? Self-Help for Backaches, Headaches, Fibromyalgia & More

There are reasons why we have pain. We don’t get a backache or a headache or any other pain unless there is a reason.

Chiropractor Greg Fors has written “A Complete Physical & Spiritual Guide To Healing Your Chronic Pain WHY WE HURT Your Total Self-Care Guide for Backaches, Headaches, Shoulder Pain, Arthritis and Fibromyalgia.”

Yes, that is a very long title, but perhaps that’s okay because it’s a very thick book. Dr. Fors explains that pain can be healed. He tells us the causes of pain, which he believes are 3: physical, biochemical and spiritual.

Dr. Fors goes into the causes of pain, too. Some of the causes may never have occurred to you. He’ll tell you where the toxic chemicals that affect your health come from, and much, much more.

Why We Hurt is a logical, well-written, pretty easy to read pain relief book.

April 21November 7

Children & Migraines: 5 Causes of Migraine Headaches in Children

Children are getting migraines at younger and younger ages. Why?

One of my clients took her 6-year old granddaughter to the pediatrician. The little girl gets migraine headaches that make her sick. This shouldn’t happen to a child! It’s bad enough when an adult gets a migraine.

What did the doctor say?

He said, “We are seeing more and more children this young with migraines. It’s because of all the chemicals in the food now.”

Here are possible causes for your child to have migraine headaches:

1. Chemicals and other food additives. These are produced in chemistry labs for the purposes of either prolonging shelf-life or “enhancing the taste.” If something “tastes good,” people will buy more and the chemical companies and food processing manufacturers will make more money. Diet sweeteners are a big cause of migraines in adults; why not in children with their much smaller bodies?

I must tell you, I’m all in favor of successful businesses and making a profit, but NOT at the risk of our health!

2. Magnesium deficiency. All of the vitamins and minerals we USED to get are necessary for our health and wellness. Magnesium is a mineral that our bodies need for lots of functions. Deficiency is a known cause of migraines.

Magnesium occurs naturally in halibut (a fish), spinach & dark green leafy veggies, nuts, seeds and whole grains. White flour has very little magnesium left after processing. More information is at National Institutes of Health Office of Dietary Supplements.

When you look at the Recommended Daily Allowance for children, remember that’s a number that prevents sickness. It’s not a number that promotes health. There is a difference. The minimums are listed. In the case of a deficiency, it may take a while to build up a sufficient amount of magnesium (or other nutrients) again. It may take Continue reading “Children & Migraines: 5 Causes of Migraine Headaches in Children”

April 21November 7

Muscle Pain & Nutrition: Will Organic Food Stop Your Pain?

Pain in your muscles and soft tissues can be caused by many things. One of them is most surely the additives and unwanted additions to the food we eat.

When your muscles are happy–getting what they need from your diet–they are able to function better.

Humans used to eat “natural.”

We ate what grew on trees, bushes in or on the ground. We ate “wild caught” fish and meat. Your body was designed to eat real food.

And now?

A lot of the things we eat come out of factories. Yum.

Our bodies just don’t know how to process the chemicals, petroleum products and other additives that are added for shelf life and flavor. (Did you know there is a whole chemical industry devoted to developing new flavors and scents so we will buy more processed “food” products?)

There are lots of reasons you should consider organic food for pain relief but here’s my wrap-up:

Yes, organic food WILL help you feel better! It WILL help your body heal and function better!

Eating organic, fresh fruits, veggies, eggs, and whatever else you like to eat WILL help you get rid of your muscle pain because you won’t be pumped full of chemicals.

You are worth it!

April 20November 7

We Need Organic Food – Let’s Not Kill Organic Farms

Organic farmers need you!

Note: This is an old article, originally published in 2009. However, you’ll see that organic farmers still need us to speak up for them!

Big farm money wins in Washington DC. Factory farms do produce a lot of, well, produce, but it’s laced with pesticides, herbicides and chemicals. And those things end up inside of us! 🙁

So, I wrote to my legislators. The responses I got were not even related to my letters to them. I’ve attached them at the end of this post. ~~~~~~~

We need organic farmers, too. Chemical companies are poisoning us and our children.

This bill, HR 875, will prevent organic farmers from doing what they need to do to get organic food to us.

I hope you can take the time to read, and please pass this along. If you have never written to your legislator before, this would be such a good time to start. Below is my letter to my legislator. Below that, is his response to my previous email to him.

Re: Organic Seed Harvesting & Use HR 875

Monday, April 20, 2009 11:21 PM
From:
“Kathryn Merrow”

To:
“Congressman John D. Dingell”

Dear Congressman Dingell,

I have been puzzling over your response to my email.

I believe it is in the best interests of ALL Americans that organic farmers be able to harvest and use their own organic seeds.

How else will we, Americans, be able to get organic produce?

Why are you willing to put the growing business of organic farms out of business?

Of course! That’s it, isn’t it!

If organic farmers are not able Continue reading “We Need Organic Food – Let’s Not Kill Organic Farms”

April 19November 7

How Poor Posture Causes Low Back Pain & How To Fix It

Most of us had good, balanced posture when we were toddlers. We held our little heads directly over our bodies and had nice curves in our lower back.

But, then…we went to school and sat on furniture that didn’t fit us. Sometimes we had to sit for hours at a time instead of running around using all of our muscles.

That’s part of the problem. We stopped using all of our muscles.

Most of us use only the same 60 or so. Since we have over 600 muscles, that means we use only about 10% instead of 100%. That gets us “out of balance.” This creates poor posture and back pain.

Or, maybe you continued using most of your muscles but in ways that caused some to be much stronger than others. Your posture might look pretty good but still you feel strain and pain in your back. That’s a clue that your posture isn’t balanced. This causes back pain.

What causes poor posture?

When you hold your head and arms in front of your body for most of the day, like most of us do, the muscles in the front of your body get short. They pull, or round, your shoulders forward. They pull your head forward and down and make your chin stick out.

When your back muscles get weak because you’re not flexing (strengthening) them, they get overstretched and strained. Instead of holding you upright, your weak back muscles let your spine round at the top and you lose the curve in your low back, too.

Then what happens?

Your bones are the support system for your body.

When your posture gets weak, or collapses, your poor muscles start acting as bones to hold you up. Your muscles are straining to hold your heavy head up while gravity is pulling it down. (Remember why? Because your head has moved in front of your body instead of being held directly over it.)

So what can I do?

There are several natural things you can do to improve your posture and get rid of your back pain.

1. Assess your posture. Have Continue reading “How Poor Posture Causes Low Back Pain & How To Fix It”

April 17November 7

Headaches: How Does Your Posture Cause Head Pain?

I’ll bet your doctor doesn’t look at your posture when you tell him or her about your head pain. Most don’t. But, she should!

Poor posture is the most common cause of headaches.

Why? Because muscles are responsible for most of our pain.

Tight muscles pull on bones. Tight muscles cause bone spurs (arthritis.) Tight muscles press on nerves and blood vessels. Overstretched muscles get trigger points which “fire” pain into other parts of your body, sometimes quite far away.

To be fair, there are a few doctors who do look at posture. When they don’t, it’s because they haven’t been trained in “muscular medicine” or because they simply don’t have time.

But, poor posture is responsible for most pain and dysfunction, including headaches.

You can see that there are a lot of ways for your muscles to cause head pain because muscles have many roles.

Bones act as our structure: they are Continue reading “Headaches: How Does Your Posture Cause Head Pain?”

April 16November 7

Back Hurts? What Should You Do for Back Pain Relief?

There can be many causes for back pain, but most of them involve muscles and soft tissues (nerves, fascia, and everything except bones.)

When you were little, you used all of your muscles. At some point, for some reason (sitting, sports, injury) you started getting out of muscular balance. When this happened, you were setting the stage for pain in your back.

When all of your muscles were “balanced” (neither too tight nor too weak) you didn’t have back pain. But, now you do.

So, what should you do?

Part of the answer depends on exactly what is causing the pain in your back.

Do you have trigger points? Trigger points are hyper-irritable places in muscles which refer, or “fire,” pain elsewhere (sometimes far away.)

Does your back hurt simply because of tight muscles or muscle strain?

Is it due to the positions or furniture you spend a lot of time in? Or your mattress?

Could it be poor posture or habits? A rotation in your torso? A “slipped disk”?

The first part of the answer is to stretch the muscles which have become shortened. These muscles are most likely at the root of your back pain, and Continue reading “Back Hurts? What Should You Do for Back Pain Relief?”