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Exercise for Gulf War Veterans with Chronic Musculoskeletal Pain
Exercise for Gulf War Veterans with Chronic Musculoskeletal Pain
Below is the news article about this finding followed by the information taken concerning the study itself. We need to hear from the gulf war veterans that are ill that did not participate in this study in the comments section following this article. Questions to address how are you dealing with exercise now since the war? Are you able to exercise? What is the result for you?
What diet have you found that helps? Have you had trouble with weight gain or loss?
What have you found as ill gulf war veterans that has helped?
What research studies have you participated in that helped you?
Long-Term Exercise Can Reduce Vets’ Muscle Pain
A bout of exercise can worsen the aches of American military veterans suffering from chronic musculoskeletal pain, a small new study shows,
But researchers say that it’s only temporary.
Long-term exercise, they stress, can help reduce veterans’ chronic pain.
About 100,000 veterans from the first Gulf War war have reported chronic musculoskeletal pain (CMP) similar to fibromyalgia. The researchers used heat to test the pain sensitivity of 15 Gulf War veterans with CMP and 17 healthy veterans of that war after a workout. Compared to the healthy participants, veterans with CMP found the heat stimuli to be more intense and unpleasant.
The vets with CMP also reported more intense leg pain during exercise and were more sensitive to the heat stimuli after the bout of exercise than they were before it. However, there were no significant differences in the pain threshold between vets with CMP and healthy vets.
Previous research has found that chronic (long-term) exercise can help reduce chronic muscle pain, noted the researchers, who worked at Middleton Memorial Hospital in Madison, Wisconsin and the University of Wisconsin.
Doctors need to encourage regular exercise for patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain in order to prevent disability, even though the early stages of an exercise program may cause increased pain for a short time, according to the researchers.
The study appears in the current issue of the Journal of Pain.
Copyright © 2010 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
J Pain. 2010 Aug;11(8):764-72. Epub 2010 Mar 24.
Exercise alters pain sensitivity in Gulf War veterans with chronic musculoskeletal pain.
Cook DB, Stegner AJ, Ellingson LD.
New Jersey War Related Injury and Illness Study Center, Veterans Affairs Medical Center, East Orange, New Jersey, USA. dcook@education.wisc.edu
Abstract
Since returning from the Persian Gulf, nearly 100,000 veterans of the first Gulf War (GVs) have reported numerous symptoms with no apparent medical explanation. A primary complaint of these individuals is chronic musculoskeletal pain (CMP). CMP symptoms in GVs are similar to those reported by patients with fibromyalgia (FM), but have not received equivalent scientific attention. Exercise research in CMP patients suggests that acute exercise may exacerbate pain while chronic exercise can reduce pain and improve other symptoms. However, the influence of exercise on GVs with CMP is largely unexplored. This study examined the impact of an acute bout of exercise on pain sensitivity in GVs with CMP. Thirty-two GVs (CMP, n = 15; Control, n = 17) were recruited to complete a series of psychophysical assessments to determine pain sensitivity to heat and pressure stimuli before and after exercise. In response to heat-pain stimuli, GVs with CMP reported higher pain intensity and affect ratings than healthy GVs and exhibited a significant increase in ratings following exercise. GVs with CMP rated exercise as more painful and effortful and were generally more sensitive to heat-pain stimuli than healthy GVs. These results are similar to what has been reported for acute exercise in patients with FM. PERSPECTIVE: Gulf War veterans with CMP perceive exercise as more painful and effortful than healthy GVs and experience increased pain sensitivity following exercise. These results suggest that similar abnormalities in central nervous system processing of nociceptive information documented in FM may also be occurring in GVs with CMP.
PMID: 20338824 [PubMed - in process]
Short URL: http://www.veteranstoday.com/?p=50096
Posted by Denise Nichols on Sep 19 2010, With 0 Reads, Filed under Gulf War Illness (GWI), Health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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I am a viet nam veteran who has been diagnosad and has suffered with fiber my algia for years
HI CM- Thanks for the info. What have you found that helps?
I discovered that aerobic exercise was shortening my life expectancy because I have vaccine-induced heart disease. Western cardiologists do not acknowledge that heart disease can be caused by bacterial and viral infections. So my exercise is limited to non-aerobic – Pilates, some form of yoga, just stretching, slowing climbing a couple of stairs or a kitchen ladder. Not enough to elevate my heart rate, so that I die of silent heart attack. Had I not sought healthcare outside the VA system, I never would have known about any of my diseases, much less that exercise is more harmful than good. All of my service-connected diseases, either denied or rated at 0 percent have been misdiagnosed by Army and VA.
I not only have the pain, but have balance trouble, muscle weakness, hypo thyroid,chronic diharria, high blood pressure, chronic fatigue,headaches, tremors as well as several other issues, the VA has been treating my symptoms and recently I see a positive change with being on Prednisone, I can get through the day walking and have less pain, it has been nine months at a low dose but it is helping. I became unable to do my daily bodybuilding and running 4 miles a day, about 4 years ago when the walking difficulities and muscle weakness began. I currently walk about 2 miles three times a week (even if using a cane. The weight lifting brings on pain and weakness in a short period of time, I have joined a water exercise class to see if this will be less strain on my muscles, I have only been to one class thus far.
Why hasn’t the “Gulf War Veterans Illness Taskforce spoken out to the VA offices of Environmental Agents and office of Education or GWVIS to care for GWVs suffering chronic musculoskeletal pain? Has didn’t a WRIISC see vets with CMP?
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