Chronic Pain - Health - Education

Patients will better understand nerve related chronic muscle pain if they understood the burnt pot principle in order to better take care of their own health.

Equivalencies:

New cooking pot: Healthy status.

Cooking in the pot using high heat will burn the food: High-intensity repetitive activities such as sports, recreational and work activities will injure nerves and muscles.

Pot starts to burn: Development of acute pain

When the food starts to burn, stop cooking immediately to cool the pot and avoid more burnt residue buildup: Rest muscles immediately to prevent development of increase in pain.
Immediately clean the pot since it is easier to prevent more and more food from getting burned: Get the acute pain treated immediately and properly until pain is totally resolved. This allows the muscles spasms to be treated immediately and prevents a self-perpetuating cycle of further entrapping intramuscular nerves and blood vessels within the spasm progressing to irreversible nerve damage.

If the burnt residue cannot be completely cleansed, cook using medium to low heat: Avoid high-intensity, high-impact activities and repetitive motion activities which will aggravate the underlying pain due to more muscle tightening and shortening.

If there is significant charring on the cooking surface that cannot be cleansed thoroughly, cooking time before food burns will be much shorter even on using regular heat: If you already have chronic pain, even regular activities of daily living will aggravate the chronic pain. The time before pain is aggravated on performing an activity is much shorter. Moderation of lifestyle is essential.
Continued cooking in a burnt pot wastes a lot of food since the food will stick to the underlying burnt residue: Muscles that are in pain and spasm are shorter in length and cannot perform efficient work. More energy has to be consumed by the muscles to perform a given activity. If the short and tight muscles are worked excessively and unduly, there will be increase in pain.
Cooking time has to be increased by using lower heat to avoid further residue buildup: Patients will have to increase the time to perform an activity. To avoid further pain aggravation movements have to be slower and graduated with frequent rest periods.

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