Are there other things patients can do to ease bone pain?

What things can I do to help ease bone pain? Physical therapy and exercise. We recommend our patients absolutely to do physical therapy and to be active. Sometimes we work very close with physical therapy. What we see is that even if your spine is completely affected by lytic lesions, by strengthening the muscles around your spine, you can give your spine stability. And that is very important. Patients with extensive bone disease but with strong muscles have more stability. So you have to make sure that you do not put too much pressure or that you do not have a spot where you do a lot of jumping that can cause additional fractures. But you should do exercise. Usually we also work with orthopedic surgery to get exact instructions. How much pounds, for instance, can the patient lift? What kind of exercises are safe for the patient? But exercising is extremely important and I would encourage each myeloma patient to regularly exercise to make the muscles stronger. Keep in mind, if your bones are weak, your muscles need to be strong. Pain medication. Usually we tell our patients to be very careful with pain medication. And patients with bone pain, they say, I don't want to take any morphine products. I'm afraid I get addicted to it and I want to stay over the counter with NSAIDs. I tell the patients, you should be pain free. It's safe to take morphine because it will be a limited time. You do not have an increased risk to get addicted because you take it for a reason and not for pleasure. It's important that you are pain free because movement is kind of really critical for the cause of the disease. If you have pain and you want to take pain medication, please avoid NSAIDs, the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug, Aleve, ibuprofen. Very important. We know that those medications can damage the kidneys. And I had patients who came back and said, you know, I took some Aleve over the counter or ibuprofen and I see that those patients can push themselves into renal failure. So we say no NSAIDs. If you have pain, bone pain, Tylenol, we know that Tylenol is not that effective, but that's why work with your doctor. Make sure that you have pain medication, also that you have some pain medication for days you don't feel that well, that you can take them in addition to cover the pain. If you have multiple myeloma, there's no special footwear. You should feel comfortable. What I would really recommend that you have safe footwear. Not that you have to avoid high heels. There's nothing against high heels if you attempt the wedding of your daughter, but just make sure that you don't fall because we know that if multiple myeloma patients fall, that they have a high risk to fracture bones. That's the most important part of it. Otherwise, you know, you should have comfortable shoewear that you move as much as you can. I get the question very often from my patients whether there's a special diet and I completely understand the desire to be proactive and do something that could help your body. But I have to say that unfortunately there is no special diet. I usually recommend my patient that they should think about organic food and they should have a healthy diet. They should make sure that they eat enough vegetables. I do not recommend to take any supplements because there's no supplement that would really prevent progression of multiple myeloma or prevent that. Patients can spend a lot of money on health supplements. And I always say patients, producers make a lot of money with those health supplements. So be relaxed, make sure you have a healthy diet. Maybe try to kind of eat more organic food. But again, don't drive yourself crazy that you're missing one or the other supplement. There's currently no supplement that could really prevent progression of multiple myeloma.