5 Reasons you are not getting relief from your chronic pain & then what you can do to get relief!
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- You are still mad about it and are fighting it.
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- You are only trying one approach to finding relief.
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- You have given up control of your treatment options because you feel so bad.
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- You may have been misdiagnosed.
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- You have accepted that nothing else can be done and you just need to learn to live with it.
Chronic Pain and our Brain
Think about it. What happens to your body when you are mad or angry about something? You tense up your muscles, you shallow breathe, and you are on edge and ready to pounce on anyone and anything that dares to cross your path. You are in the midst of fighting a battle; unfortunately it is with your own body. Let that sink in. Ponder that thought for a few minutes and while you are pondering, breathe, just breathe, deeply. Breathe in through your nose for a count of 6 and breathe out through pursed lips for a count of 6. Concentrate on your breathing for three minutes. Notice how your body feels and what is happening. This is a no judgement zone. You are just to observe and be curious about how your body is feeling. Do your deep breathing exercises five times a day.
Treat Chronic Pain with more than 1 approach
When you use more than one approach to treat chronic pain you increase your chances of success. What would your life look like if you were more successful in decreasing your pain level? Enjoying family and friends? Enjoying going out and doing more of the things that you want to enjoy? Can you even remember a time when you felt good enough to enjoy your life? Look, you may not be able to become completely pain free, but you certainly can lessen the pain and have a better quality of life. Everyone deserves effective treatment.
Could it be that you are not taking the appropriate medication(s) for your particular needs? Could it be that you haven’t thought of or been given the option of using multiple integrative treatment approaches? Maybe your medications were working at one time but now they are no longer working. What has been shown to improve pain relief? Acupressure, Acupuncture, Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, Stretching routines, Yoga, Breathing exercises, Massage, Far infrared heat, Migun bed treatments, talk therapy and guess what? None of the things mentioned included more medications! In fact, you may be able to decrease the medications that you are currently on and have better pain relief. You are more than welcome to throw the bullshit flag, I certainly have, but I must admit I have had more success with the breathing exercises, far infrared heat and Migun bed treatments than I had with medications and I am a pharmacist by trade. Pain medications do not always work for chronic pain.
How you are affected by Chronic Pain
When you hurt for so long your nerves are just shot and you really can only do what you absolutely must do. That is all the energy that you have. I get it. You relationships begin to suffer, your work begins to suffer and you just feel stuck. Pain wears your body out and you do feel tired and exhausted much of the time. If you could think rationally, you might be able to look into other treatment options. Everyone deserves options because the same things do not work for everyone. Maybe you have tried a few things but they did not work or you weren’t willing or able to give them enough time to work. People that are in chronic pain cannot think rationally and logically they just want the pain to stop. Unfortunately, there are people out in the marketing world that know this and they use that knowledge to manipulate people in chronic pain to buy “X” or try “Y.” None of it works. Then what happens? When the chronic pain patient is approached by other options and ideas they don’t want to try them. Why? Because they tried things before and spent a lot of money and nothing worked. They don’t want to waste any more money and they sure don’t want to get their hopes up only to be dashed again when it might not work. Integrative health approaches are science based and they won’t put you in the poor house. If anyone tries to tell you that something will take away all of your pain, they are lying. You goal is to lessen the pain and get your life back. Physical therapy for chronic pain control may be an option for you.
What if your pain management treatment plan is wrong for you?
What if your doctor was wrong in the diagnosis? It happens. Doctors are human and it is called the practice of medicine not the certainty of medicine. You may not know or even have an exact cause of your chronic pain, there are things you can do to lessen the pain. Notice that I said, “You can do.” That is correct; it is up to you to help yourself. You cannot be passive in your treatment. It takes engagement and work to get better.
Have you been told “You just have to learn to live with it.”? If you have, I am sorry. I do not agree with that and what it means is that they don’t know what else to do for you. That is just unacceptable and a disservice to you. It is one thing to know and to accept that you will be living with a chronic pain issue, but it is quite another thing to not lessen the severity of the pain and to improve quality of life. Everyone deserves a better quality of life no matter what the circumstan
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