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Refuel
An Excerpt from The Pain Solution by Saloni Sharma, MD

If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don’t.
— Michael Pollan

Myth: Orthopaedic pain is not affected by food choices.
Fact: Food programs the body for more or less pain and inflammation.
Relief-5R: Optimizing our fuel is part of a pain solution.

Food and orthopaedic pain may not seem linked. In fact, most orthopaedists recommend medications, injections, and surgery for pain relief, not a pain-fighting food plan. This approach ignores a major pain factor. The standard American diet (SAD) is full of foods that aggravate pain: added sugar, excess salt, unhealthy fats, and artificial ingredients. The SAD triggers painful inflammation. Processed foods, the crown jewels of the SAD, are found everywhere, from our workplaces and schools to convenience stores, fast-food restaurants, and hospitals. Even when we know they are not healthy, they trap us into wanting more. This is no accident. The food industry designs these highly processed foods to trigger the reward system in our brains, just like opioids! They want to trigger what they call a “bliss point,” an exact ratio of extra sugar, salt, and fat that gives us a high and creates cravings. This is sick.

The industry exploits more than just our sense of taste. An award-winning scientific study, dubbed the “sonic chip” study, revealed that the louder the crunch of a chip when we bite into it, the more fresh, crispy, and desirable we perceive it to be. This trickery hijacks the feel-good signals in the brain to make eating a processed chip feel like eating a crisp, ripe apple. Through no fault of our own, we are duped into craving these substances. Processed food is quick, cheap, and emotionally rewarding. Trillions of dollars a year are spent on advertising to keep us coming back for more. It seems nearly impossible to escape the processed-food trap on our own. It’s not because we lack willpower. It is because we are under a biological attack.

But armed with a plan for healthy refueling, we can break free. First, we must recognize that how we fuel our bodies determines how well we function. Our fuel and environment can build us up or break us down. They determine our inflammation and pain levels. Smart nutrition choices can help heal damage to our bodies and prevent future degeneration. Nourishing food activates natural pain-control mechanisms in the body and helps us more efficiently clean out wastes and harmful substances. It can reduce painful inflammation in our spine, joints, and muscles. Studies have shown that consuming real, unprocessed food reduces pain, inflammation, and cellular damage. Each food decision tips the balance toward or away from painful inflammation. Once freed from the hooks of processed food, we get to choose. We can quell and prevent pain with better food choices. Let’s dig in! We will start with an overview of the typical diet and its connection to chronic pain, look at easy ways to improve our food intake, and discover practical ways to add microboosts to our day.

My Refuel Experience
Everything I thought was rewarding me was poisoning me. A busy shift, a difficult morning, or a sluggish feeling called for a diet soda. The bubbles danced on my tongue and reenergized me — without sugar. A win, I thought. Little did I know that diet soda intake correlates with higher rates of inflammation, diabetes, and metabolic syndrome, that diet soda consumption is associated with a greater risk of kidney failure, or that both sugar-sweetened and diet soft drinks are linked with obesity. It gets worse. During the afternoon slump, I would gobble down processed cookies or candy and be puzzled in the evening when a food baby erupted. My treats — soda, processed food, and simple carbohydrates — were fueling destructive inflammation. I was unknowingly hurting myself.

It was not until I was pregnant that I began making connections between my diet and my health. When I developed gestational diabetes (diabetes of pregnancy), I was shocked, since I was at a healthy weight and exercised regularly. Through this diagnosis I came face to face with my family history of diabetes. I resolved to make lifestyle changes to manage my blood sugar, reduce inflammation, and ensure the safety of my growing bundle of joy.

For the first time in my life, I learned how to use nutritional labels. I found that my blood sugar was better controlled if I ate more fiber, adequate protein, and no fake, fat-free foods. Four times a day, I stabbed my fingertip to measure my blood sugar and discovered how it was affected by my food choices and activity level. An afternoon walk lowered my blood sugar enough that I could enjoy a fun-size candy bar afterward. At a New Year’s Day brunch, I learned I could eat a donut with two strips of bacon on top and not bump my blood sugar (though I don’t recommend it). How could I be a physician and know so little about this? I knew I couldn’t be the only one.

Saloni Sharma, MD, LAc, is double board-certified in pain management and rehabilitation medicine. She is the medical director and founder of the Orthopaedic Integrative Health Center at Rothman Orthopaedics and has treated thousands of patients. She is also cochair of Pain Management and Spine Rehabilitation for the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. A popular speaker at Google and an award-winning clinical assistant professor at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, she lives near Philadelphia. More information at www.salonisharmamd.com.

Excerpted from the book The Pain Solution: 5 Steps to Relieve and Prevent Back Pain, Muscle Pain, and Joint Pain. Copyright ©2022 by Saloni Sharma, MD. Printed with permission from New World Library.

I had a dream that my ex-boyfriend got into a freakish accident with a parachute and died. Then I was having dinner with his family and my best friend, and I started breaking down at the table and his father comforted me. After dinner we went to this room that looked like a court room and saw photos of his autopsy. In the dream even though it was clear he was dead, I kept thinking he was going to be saved and come back to life. The image of the autopsy is still in my mind. I woke up hysterically crying. In reality, my ex and I haven't spoken since the break-up and we didn't end things on good terms. This is the second dream I've had of him dying. The one I just described was worse than the first one and more emotional. What does this mean?

Susyn:

Since our dreams often contain buried fears and unresolved issues, it's understandable that you are having dreams about your ex-boyfriend. You mention that you did not end things on good terms, though you do not say whether the decision to break up was mutual. Your dreams are telling you that, in order to move forward, you have some emotional work to do.

When we dream of someone who is in a plane, parachute or even on a high ledge, the message is that we may have left them hanging in limbo. Because of the nature of your breakup, this could be the reason you dreamed of him dying due to an unopened parachute. Your belief that he was going to come back to life also suggests that you have some unresolved issues regarding the relationship.

If you want to stop having such intensely emotional dreams, I recommend you start to process your feelings when you're awake through writing or sharing them with a trusted friend or advisor. First write down your general thoughts about the relationship and then some of the details that caused the breakup. Putting your feelings down on paper will bring them up from your subconscious and help alleviate the hold they clearly still have on you. Once youíve done this, sharing them with another person will help you put things into perspective so you can lay the relationship to rest.

Your dream is encouraging you to do this, for the autopsy suggests that you are searching for your part in the demise of the relationship. If you journal about this, you can learn what you need to learn so that you don't repeat the same mistakes in future relationships.

Of course, you will see troublsome actions and traits in your ex-boyfriend as well. Noting these can help you refrain from getting involved with someone similar in the future. For example, if your ex-boyfriend cheated on you or had an addictive personality, you will know to avoid men with the same tendencies next time.

Once you can look at the details of the relationship from a more objective and less emotional stance, these dreams should start to subside. Your ex-boyfriend is not in any danger of losing his life, for these dreams aren't prophetic; they are messages that before you move on to a new relationship, you need to process and complete the one that just ended on an emotional and spiritual level.

*****

Mata Maya:

Our dreams offer us ways to work through feelings and issues that we're not dealing with on a conscious level. You are having these intense dreams because the relationship ended badly and you haven't spoken to your ex to resolve things since your break-up.

To me, the dream is clearly not about the death of your boyfriend but about the death of the relationship. The parachute represents something that failed that you did not expect to fail, and how the results of that failure were disastrous. Your grief about him dying is symbolic of your sorrow over the end of the relationship.

The court room is about trying to figure out who is to blame and what went wrong. The same is true of the autopsy, which is of course a way to determine the cause of this death. This dream is a way for your subconscious to help you work out what went wrong and process your feelings of loss.

If your boyfriend had been killed by someone else - if you had stabbed him to death or he had been killed by a stranger - we might assume that this was a wish fulfillment sort of dream, a way for you to safely express some of your anger toward him. Since he died in a freak accident and you are sad in the dream, it's clear that you more heartbroken than angry and are still trying to figure out what went wrong.

That you keep thinking he is going to be saved and come back to life suggests that you still carry hope of reconciling with him. Of course, it could also be a clue from your subconscious that this dream is not about him literally being dead but is instead symbolic of something else - the death of your romantic relationship with him.

When relationships end in the physical, they don't end in the astral. This is why we keep dreaming about people we no longer see anymore. If you consciously work with your dreams, you can actually work things out with your ex in dream experiences with him even if you're unable to see or talk with him on a physical level.

To do this, meditate on your relationship before you go to sleep at night, and ask to meet with him in your dreams with the intention of finding new peace and understanding. If you do this and you also work in a general way to have lots of dreams that you remember clearly, you should begin to dream of him often, and to have ever more positive dream experiences.

Astrea:

Many times in life we hear, "You will always have what you NEED, but not necessarily what you WANT." Your spirit must have needed to experience the feeling of leaving your human body, and the suggestion in the next chapter of Sylvia Brown's book was all it took to get you there.

Even though you hadn't read it yet, your SOUL recognized the title of that chapter as something it had been seeking, and your soul, knowing that you had that reference to read after your experience, got with it and out you went!

While I don't usually recommend her books, Sylvia Brown has a wide reaching and powerful effect on lots of people. A Gemini like you would be able to relate easily to her writing and put it to good use. Synchronicity - you gotta love it!

I like your description of "getting caught." That's exactly what it feels like, isn't it? One minute you're free and hovering above the room, and the next minute, ZAP! back down into your corporeal form you go!

As a little kid, I loved that "feeling of return." With practice, most of the time we can control that event, but sometimes, when our physical ears hear a distracting noise or something else occurs to knock us back into reality, back we go. With practice you will be able to control your return better.

I find it interesting that you were visiting your mother-in-law and not someone in your own genetic family. Evidently, you and your husband got married for reasons that are even deeper than love. His family's interest in "psychic stuff" will nurture your children in such matters and help them to grow into their own abilities.

You'll never have to be concerned that when your daughter visits them, she'll be discouraged from exploring her own psychic life and power. My parents encouraged me to develop my psychic senses in a time when it wasn't nice to even discuss such things in public. Heck, it's STILL not considered a great topic at the dinner table in some families!

Your kids will get to talk about it ALL and ask questions and read and study. This is going to give them such an edge in life! Talk with your husband about how you want to present this to your kiddos, so that you are united in your approach and ready to tell them their experiences are all natural and okay.

A word or two of warning: Geminis often have difficulty staying grounded in REAL LIFE. Don't get so strung out on your ASTRAL life that you neglect what you're doing here on Earth.

You are at the beginning of a long journey to learn where your power really lies. Try to be patient with this process and take your time.