The Good News About Chronic Pain

With good therapeutic support and a commitment to do some hard work on important life issues, chronic pain can be managed very effectively. For some people, mind/body strategies have been shown to eliminate pain altogether, even when all else has failed. People who have been through therapy which addresses pain report significantly reduced pain severity, lessened depression and anxiety, and decreased feelings of losing control. They report reductions in the degree to which pain interferes with their daily activities. Even if the pain continues, the sufferer can experience less distress and emotional suffering – and can become an active participant in life again.

Therapy For Chronic Pain

 There are several good physical treatments that can alleviate pain. Some forms of acute pain respond well to painkilling medications ranging from mild analgesics to strong opium-based drugs for the most severe cases. Some chronic pain responds well to anti-inflammatory medications or antidepressants, although narcotic drugs are seldom effective for chronic pain (they may work for short-term acute pain) since narcotics tend to require ever increasing doses and they become less effective over time – not to mention their effect on our sleep, our mood, and our ability to think and perform clearly. Sometimes electrical stimulation methods provide some relief, as well as local anesthetics, surgical procedures, ice, heat, and massage. If these medical interventions fail, however, it may be time to take a hard look into some psychotherapeutic techniques that focus on the way we handle our emotions and our general way of living.

Although the cause of chronic pain is usually difficult to pinpoint, most pain experts believe that it is caused by damaged and inflamed nerves, muscles and blood vessels – and it is very real. The body becomes locked into a vicious cycle. You naturally limit movement in the painful area, and this causes you to lose strength and flexibility. If you try to ignore the pain and increase your activity, the pain becomes so severe that you again become inactive. Sometimes you unconsciously guard against the pain and this leads to muscle tension and spasms. Your body becomes weak and deconditioned, and you begin to feel frustrated, angry, and depressed. Your friends and family do not understand the pain and may underestimate its impact on your life. This leads to more anger and depression.

Sometimes, though, it may overindulge you, and this can make you feel more dependent and out of control of your own life. These negative emotions can actually perpetuate pain. The more negativity we feel, the greater our pain – and the greater our pain, the more negative emotions we experience. This negative spiral, though, can be broken. We are sometimes told that we will just have to live with our pain after all else has failed, but we are far from doomed at this point. The realization that nothing else medically can be done can actually force us to examine the way we have lived and what brought us to the point where pain can play such a dominant role in our lives. In fact, this may just be the thing that it takes to turn one’s life around in a very positive and meaningful way.

You are invited to explore the many alternative ways of dealing with pain that therapy has to offer. Please visit our site at DrQuintal.com or call us at 941-907-0525 for a free phone consultation.

You can also receive more information by following us on Twitter and Facebook.

Understanding and Managing Chronic Pain

Estimates based on research indicate that from ten to thirty percent of the American population suffers from chronic or recurrent physical pain. Pain sufferers often feel that their doctors are not able to give them the treatment they need to alleviate their pain. They may have been told that it is all in their head, and they feel very alone when nobody can seem to give them support for being in pain. They feel helpless, anxiety-ridden, depressed, angry, frustrated, and out of control. They often turn to prescription pain medication, drugs or alcohol for relief – only to find that these quick fixes can cause more complications and devastation in their lives than the original pain.

Tips For Managing Chronic Pain and Regaining Control of Your Life

The first step in taking charge of chronic pain is to learn more about our experience of pain in a structured way. When we live daily with pain we sometimes lose track of just how severe the cycles can be, and we also tend to forget the better periods. We need to increase our awareness of the cycling of pain throughout the day and what we are doing to manage it. We also need to distinguish between the actual pain we experience and our emotional distress associated with this pain. Thus, it is important to keep a pain diary. This allows us to record our level of pain at various times throughout the day – and to see how pain is related to the time of day, mood, fatigue, stress, what we are doing, and whom we are with. It also encourages us to become aware of the crucial question of whether the pain is physical or more associated with our subjective experience of emotional distress.

Negative thinking can greatly increase a person’s experience of felt pain. When we think that our life is over, we will never have fun again, and our plans for the future are destroyed, we are undermining our own sense of control and are setting ourselves up to experience more pain. We need to challenge these negative ideas and replace them with positive thoughts. Examine your negative thoughts and change them to more positive, assertive ideas. Rather than saying, “I am totally incapacitated and will never have pleasure again,” replace it with, “I need to learn what I have done wrong in the past so that I can go on to accomplish things in the future that I have always wanted to do.” These are but a few of the techniques that can be explored in dealing with chronic pain. You are invited to explore the many alternative ways of dealing with pain that therapy has to offer. Please visit our site at DrQuintal.com or call us at 941-907-0525 for a free phone consultation.

You can also receive more information by following us on Twitter and Facebook.