Chronic pain can bring your life to a grinding halt, and that is why many people turn to powerful painkillers.
While those products temporarily mask your pain, they shouldn’t be used for long periods of time. If you are struggling with chronic pain, you need to come up with a comprehensive treatment plan that addresses the root causes of your discomfort.
Here are some of the right and wrong ways to handle chronic pain.
1) Avoid Long-Term Use of Painkillers
Most over-the-counter painkillers are safe, but using them for a long period of time can result in quite a few unwanted side effects and cause serious damage to your liver. You are also going to put yourself in danger if you take more than the recommended dosage or mix painkillers with other substances such as alcohol. If you have found yourself requiring higher doses of acetaminophen or ibuprofen, you should speak with a doctor about alternative treatments.
2) Don’t Mask the Pain with Ice
Putting ice or a cold pack on an acute injury is going to minimize the pain and prevent inflammation, but cold therapy isn’t a great option for chronic pain. When the pain is ongoing, ice won’t have the necessary effect on inflammation, especially in instances where you want to keep the blood flowing rather than slowing it down for proper healing. Patients also need to be wary of using ice packs for more than a few minutes at a time. Prolonged exposure to an ice pack can damage the skin and kill off nerve cells. In most cases, cold therapy should only be used for temporary pain relief after an acute injury has occurred.
3) Consider Ketamine Infusion Therapy
Ketamine is a pain relief agent that has been used within the medical industry for many decades. In addition to chronic pain services, ketamine infusion therapy is also being used to help those who are struggling with depression. This style of therapy usually takes around 45 minutes to complete, and some patients enjoy a reduction in their pain for multiple days following their appointments. Many patients also combine ketamine therapy with holistic treatments such as guided breathing and meditation. This is a great way to manage pain while seeking permanent solutions to the cause of your pain, or when permanent solutions aren’t possible.
4) Visit an Experienced Neurophysiologist
Some of the conditions that cause chronic pain are the result of nerves that are misfiring, and patients who have those conditions should visit a neurophysiologist. A neurophysiologist can diagnose and treat disorders of the nervous system, and they have a wide variety of tools at their disposal. Physiotherapy can help strengthen areas where swollen muscles are pinching off nerves, and treatments can also include medications, holistic treatments, chiropractic services, and if necessary, surgery. If you are interested in meeting with a neurophysiologist, then you should ask your primary doctor for a recommendation.
Everyone is going to experience aches and injuries over the years, but you should not ignore any long-term or debilitating pain. That discomfort is often the result of a serious medical complication that needs to be treated right away. Pain is your body’s way of telling you that something is wrong, so first seek to find the cause of the problem. After that, work with a licensed chronic pain physician to treat the pain as necessary to ensure that it is done in a healthy and sustainable way.
Tagged under