Chronic pain can manifest in many ways. For example, it can linger around your joints, muscles, and it can even feel as though parts of your body are on fire. Other people are often challenged by fatigue, lack of energy, or persistent feeling of being tired.
Sometimes, they might even have problems sleeping at night and eventually develop a disorder known as insomnia. It doesn’t end there; chronic pain can cause lowered stamina, and people often complain about their bodies lacking flexibility. Worse, it takes a jab on your mental health as well. People who suffer from—and struggle with—chronic pain often develop psychological and mental conditions. The most common of these is depression.
Depression is a serious mental condition. Its most prominent symptom is a persistent and intrusive feeling of sadness. Others often feel incredibly guilty about decisions they’ve made in the past. It can be so isolating that many patients, especially those who do not undergo any form of treatment, feel imprisoned in their minds.
How can we deal with chronic pain?
One of the best—and most prudent things—you can do is consult with a reliable and experienced pain doctor. Pain specialists can help you manage the pain. In return, this can help you feel better. It will also help you move—and function—more efficiently and face everyday challenges. More importantly, they can help lower the intensity of pain and increase your overall well-being.
Let’s discuss some of your options today.
Take Drug Therapy
One of the options you can look into and explore when treating chronic pain is drug therapy. As the name suggests, you can use a variety of drugs to manage your pain. It’sIt’s an effective strategy that quickly lowers the intensity of pain, if not eliminate it altogether.
Drug therapy can be prescribed, which means you need a physician to prescribe them for you. However, some drugs are also available over the counter, which means you can buy them even without a prescription. In general, pain relievers go by four names: pain medicine, analgesics, narcotics, and pain killers.
Some of the drugs that will need a prescription for pain are antidepressants. These have chemicals that affect various neurotransmitters in your brain. They are very popular in treating migraines. Steroids are another type of pain drug that requires a prescription. They work on the pain by preventing your body from producing irritant and inflammatory chemicals.
Some of the over-the-counter pain relievers you may be familiar with are acetaminophen and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). Acetaminophen or Tylenol works on the pain by dulling the pain receptors found in your brain. On the other NSAIDs work on the pain by decreasing the inflammation in the nerve endings.
Treat the Pain Through Physical Therapy
Physical therapy has been known to treat chronic pain effectively. If it can’t eliminate the sensation, then at the very least, it can help lessen or lower the intensity of pain. It’sIt’s also a popular choice for those who want to avoid surgery.
In addition to pain management, physical therapy has been proven to improve joints, muscles, and bones. Overall, it helps people enhance their mobility, control over their bodies and preventing falls. Physical therapy is even good for those recovering from sports-related injuries or those who want to avoid them.
It’sIt’s a perfect choice that can also help you control or manage your weight. It even helps manage diabetes and other vascular conditions. In many cases, it’s also used to treat age-related issues. This is the reason why physical therapy is a good route. It’sIt’s beneficial for many reasons.
In line with this, you might want to consult with a physical therapist. He can help you manage your pain and reduce your need for medication. You can also recover from stroke, paralysis, or trauma better. The best part is that everyone from all age groups can benefit from physical therapy.
Recover through Psychological Therapy
Psychological therapy covers various therapies like cognitive-behavioral and relaxation techniques. Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is a great way to manage pain. It can influence the way you feel by changing the way you think.
With CBT, patients undergo training and experience to learn coping mechanisms to deal with pain. Here, the goal is to start thinking healthy and to vanish negativity. If you can stop the thoughts of pain, you can control the sensation of pain.
Another way to deal with pain is through acceptance. This is the teaching behind acceptance and commitment therapy. Here, people learn to manage chronic pain by accepting negative emotions and basing their actions and choices on their values.
Meanwhile, the study has shown that meditation helps with chronic pain by lessening its intensity. It affects the neural pathways in the brain so that you become less sensitive to pain. In addition, long-term mindfulness practitioners can even reduce pain better compared to non-practitioners.
Chronic pain can be a daily challenge. But you are not alone, and you have many choices of treatment. Today, you can finally be free from chronic pain if you try the drug, physical, or psychological therapies.
