Laughter Is Good Medicine For Arthritis.....How about for adhesions too!!!!!!!!!!!

From: Helen Dynda (olddad66@runestone.net)
Wed Jul 12 17:06:02 2000


Monday, July 10, 2000 Laughter Is Good Medicine For Arthritis Jeff Nesmith - 2000 Cox News Service

Becky Callicoatte loves Lucy - and with good reason.

Callicoatte accidentally discovered several years ago that a good laugh immediately eased the enduring pain of her rheumatoid arthritis.

Since then, she has used tapes of re-runs of ``I Love Lucy,'' ``The Odd Couple,'' ``Candid Camera'' and other television comedy shows, as well as a joke wherever she can pick one up, for pain relief.

Callicoatte, of Shreveport, La., is one of nine arthritis sufferers who have been trained as ``patient-partners'' in a new program created by the Arthritis Foundation and G.D. Searle & Co., the pharmaceuticals manufacturer, to teach other persons with the condition how to use ``cognitive pain management'' to help break the self-reinforcing cycle of chronic pain.

She also appears with five other arthritis sufferers on a 45-minute video around which the teaching sessions are organized. ``Odd Couple'' star Tony Randall - who also has arthritis - leads a video discussion by Callicoatte and others on techniques they have used to control their pain.

In a telephone interview, she recalled a pivotal event in her 30-year battle with rheumatoid arthritis.

``It was of those days when the pain was just terrible,'' she said, ``and finally, I was so desperate that I said to my husband, 'Why don't you just go ahead and put me in a nursing home.'''

He immediately replied, ``I would if I could afford it.''

She knew he was joking and the remark struck her as funny at the time. She noticed immediately that the pain eased with her laughter.

``After that, I started watching old television comedies and a friend of mine in Houston would mail me cartoons out of the newspaper to make me laugh,'' Callicoatte said. ``Anything to just take my mind off of it.''

But Dr. William Fry, an emeritus professor of psychiatry at Stanford University Medical School and a pioneer researcher in the physiology of humor and laughter, says Callicoatte may have been doing a lot more than taking her mind off of her pain.

``A lot of the pain you experience with arthritis has to do with muscle spasm,'' Fry said. ``In response to pain in the connective tissue - in ligaments, cartilage and so forth - surrounding muscles try to pull away from that pain, to get away from it.''

This secondary level of pain is overlaid onto the initial arthritis pain, Fry said.

``Laughter is a spasmodic process,'' he said. ``Muscles are contracting, relaxing, contracting, relaxing and so forth.''

This tends to override other muscle spasms, Fry believes.

``When you are laughing, muscles that are not involved in the laughter activity usually go into a more flaccid state,'' he said.

Always looking for a joke, Callicoatte said Fry's opinion ``must mean I'm not crazy, after all.''

The Searle-Arthritis Foundation program, entitled ``Taking Control of Arthritis Pain,'' is straightforward. There's nothing magic about the techniques being offered and participants are cautioned that the program is not intended to supplant their medical care.

However, they are told that pain often occurs in a cycle. People who hurt lose abilities and become depressed and stressed, which leads to more pain.

``Although pain is a physical symptom, you can actually use the power of your mind to help manage it,'' a workbook used during the ``Taking Control'' sessions states. Then it lists techniques such as distraction, controlled muscle relaxation and guided imagery in which the patient concentrates on positive memories or pleasant experiences.

Other techniques for pain management include exercise and hot/cold treatments.

In addition to ``patient-partners,'' a Searle program, the sessions are to be led by Arthritis Foundation ``heroes overcoming arthritis,'' persons who have been recognized for their own efforts to cope with pain.

Shannon Whetstone Mescher, vice president of the Arthritis Foundation, said the program will be offered to organizations and corporations whose members or employees may have arthritis.

http://www.pain.com/news/news.cfm?news__Unique=543


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