Use Caution with Muscle Pain Relief Products

I recently heard that over-the-counter muscle pain relief products could be toxic.  I looked it up myself, and found many muscle pain relief products contain methyl salicylate (and menthol) and can be harmful if misused or overused.  Believe it or not, there is one case of death from overuse of Bengay.  

Methyl salicylate is naturally produced by wintergreens known as wintergreen oil, or synthetically produced.  It is toxic in pure form (like many medicinal properties), and found in high concentrations in deep heating liniments.  It mainly works as a “counterirritant,” which heats up and cools the skin, so you feel more of the sensation rather than the pain you originally had.  It may be effective more for acute pain than chronic pain.

Some of the muscle pain relief brand names (generic name: menthol/methyl salicylate topical) are: Bengay, Icy Hot, Mentholatum D, Salonpas Pain Patch, and many sold as “muscle rub.”

Like any other over-the-counter products, it is safe as long as you follow the directions, but harmful or deadly if overused (like taking too many sleeping pills).  I am just trying to caution you because it might be very easy to use a muscle pain relief product too much or too often when you are constantly in pain.  You must:   

• Read the entire information, Warnings, and Directions of the product before using it.  
• Check if your medication (especially, blood thinning medications, NSAIDs, and steroids) may interact with menthol/methyl salicylate topical.  
• Don’t use it with a heating pad, or under a tight bandage.
• Use it temporarily, and see your doctor if the problem persists.    

*If you use “natural” products containing wintergreen oil, same caution should apply.

Walking is the Best Medicine

Walking is a man’s best medicine.  - Hippocrates

If you are thinking about starting exercise, I recommend walking.   In fact, I want to promote walking as part of your daily life, not just for exercise or weight loss.

Our life now involves too much sitting, which is a completely unnatural activity for the human body.  I’ve seen in almost everybody back, shoulder, neck pain as well as other symptoms caused by sitting too long because our body structure is designed to be upright standing and moving around.  New research in the Annals of Internal Medicine shows that prolonged sitting threatens our health and life even with a regular physical activity.  It says that sedentary or physical inactivity for a large portion of the day will increase the risk of cancers (by 13%-16%), death from cardiovascular disease (by 18%), type 2 diabetes (by 90%) and shorten our life expectancy.

Walking is an easy (no skills required), perfect activity you can do anytime anywhere to cut back sitting time.  Besides, there is a very low risk of injuries (1%-5%).  Let’s start slowly, especially if you have been a couch potato.  You can walk any way you like.  Start with walking one block or 5 minutes out and back.  Try to find some time in the morning, during the lunch break, before or after dinner, with your music, spouse, kids or dogs. Come up with your own way of making it part of your daily routine.  If you can do it everyday for a week, you can try farther and longer.  Studies by Harvard Medical School suggests that walking lowered the risk of heart attack and cardiac death by 31-32% in both men and women.  

One last thing.  You will need a good pair of walking shoes especially if you have flat feet (over-pronated) or high arches.  You don’t want to cause unnecessary pain or an injury wearing wrong shoes.  I recommend you go to a local running/athletic shoe store (NOT chain or big brand name sports stores) where an experienced salesperson will check your feet, arches, and the way you walk to pick the right walking shoes for you. 

FAQ: Why Massage Makes Us Feel Good?

Touch is the most important foundation of massage therapy.  I have written about how touch affects body and mind in “Touch,” “Benefits of Massage,” “Human Touch” and the Japanese post “スキンシップで幸せになろう.”  Now that recent studies prove that touch is good for us, I will sum it up from a scientific point of view. 

When we receive positive touch, two (at least) physiological reactions happen to us.  First, the parasympathetic nervous system is activated.  The parasympathetic nervous system is our home base and helps us back to healing mode, “rest-and-digest,” decreasing the “fight-or-flight” stress response.  Consequently, we experience the sense of relaxation and contentment.

Secondly, oxytocin, so called the “love hormone,” made in the hypothalamus in the brain, is released.  It immediately makes us feel calm and connected to the environment and people around us.  It contributes to relaxation, healing, trust-building, and psychological stability.  One of the studies on oxytocin and massage concluded that “massage increases OT (oxytocin) and decreases ACTH (adrenocorticotropin hormone)”  (ACTH is a hormone often produced in response to emotional and physical stress.)

We don’t have to have pain or tight muscles to receive a massage.  Without knowing it, we deal with stress (big or small) all the time or are getting ready for the next stressful moment.  Massage gives us a break.  Let’s make a feel-good-experience a habit to better our life.

Understanding Pain

Obviously, one of the benefits of massage is reducing pain.  Pain seems to be a hot topic in neuroscience, and I’ve been curious about it for a while.  In the world where pain is merely masked by painkillers, not understanding and treating the source of pain, I would really hope that more research will be conducted to understand and treat pain with a totally different approach.

Pain is still a mystery.  There is more unknown than known, but we have slowly discovered what pain really is.  Here is a very funny TED Talks video by Prof. Lorimer Moseley (FYI: he is not a comedian) “Why Things Hurt.”  He states that “any credible evidence of danger to your body will modulate pain,” even an illusion.  This talk didn’t touch on chronic pain, but in his another lecture (“Body in mind - the role of the brain in chronic pain”), he states that the chronic pain is “no longer an accurate indication of the state of the body” and “we can retrain the brain to regain precision.”

Understanding pain is not that simple.  We should always consider there are people who are suffering from pain everyday and pay attention to their emotional and psychological pain at the same time.