When a person is diagnosed with chronic pain, they may become so consumed by the pain that they ignore the rest of their lives. The constant anticipation of the pain can make people reluctant to perform their normal daily activities. If you have this condition, learn how you can take an active role in preventing it from taking over your life.
The Different Types of Pain
Acute pain is your body's response to something wrong. It warns you of a physical injury or disease. When the disease threat is gone or the injury is repaired, the pain goes away. A cut on your finger, appendicitis, or sinus congestion all invoke the same acute pain response and you can expect it to go away soon.
Chronic pain lasts for several weeks or months. It may have started from an injury or disease, but remains long after the initial problem was corrected. In some cases, no trigger is found to cause the pain. However, the persistent pain can have a big impact on your life, such as:
Before chronic pain robs you of your life, get help from a pain clinic. They will establish a program for you to manage your pain so you can have a normal life.
A Team to Help Manage Your Pain
Chronic pain usually cannot be cured, so the goal of a pain institute is to help reduce the level of pain and frequency so you can comfortably resume your daily activities. A number of treatment techniques are available, but because the cause of the chronic pain is rarely understood, several techniques may have to be tried before finding the ones that consistently work for you.
Self-Management of Your Chronic Pain
The staff in a pain clinic will also help you to recognize unhealthy changes in yourself. Chronic pain sufferers can easily develop depression due to the constant stress and anxiety caused by the pain. You will learn the signs of oncoming depression and how to prevent it with behavioral modification techniques. These help you to think and feel more positive in spite of the constant pain. You'll learn communication techniques with your healthcare providers, friends, family and support groups to keep you from becoming isolated with your thoughts about the pain.
Managing your chronic pain is a team effort. Get involved with a local pain clinic like Illinois Pain Institute and learn the techniques to control the pain so you can take back your life.
Share13 January 2015
When my daughter began having academic problems in school and acting out, I knew that something wasn’t right. Her teachers wanted me to put her on ADD medications, but I didn’t think that that was the right course for us. I had serious doubts that ADD was what was causing her problems. I took her to several different specialists before discovering that her issues in school were actually do to a visual processing problem. The doctor recommended vision therapy, not medication, to help correct the problem and get her back on track. The exercises are really starting to pay off, and she’s showing great improvement.
