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Chronic pain treatment, just like depression treatment, is a very big area, and it can be hard to understand.
The right approach to chronic pain treatment can depend on so many things, such as
* what type of pain you are dealing with
* how long the pain has persisted
* what your personal stance is towards painkillers and other medication (and towards specific types of medication)
* the quality of your relationship with your health care givers
* your insurance and/or financial situation
* what the rest of your life looks like
* how the people around you feel about your condition
* what you think of alternative/complementary healing approaches
* your general state of physical and emotional health
* the quality of your spiritual life
* - and so on …
Is chronic pain treatment the same as chronic pain management? For some people that’s the case. There are those whose pain will never completely go away, and the best way to handle it is to find ways to have the pain “meter” as low as possible, to look for moments when it’s almost gone, and to manage the pain as best as possible when it starts acting up. One way of reaching those goals is to use relaxation and meditation.
Before you roll your eyes, saying, “I’ve heard this all before”, please hear me out!
First of all, in my opinion there are too many people who receive the recommendation that they just have to “live with the pain”. Yes, there are people who, after quite a bit of research, end up having to do that. But there are lots and lots of other people who can have complete or almost complete pain relief.
I remember the case of a woman who spent years close to suicide because of horrible migraines and back pain – until we met and together we worked on finding a doctor with the right approach to chronic pain treatment, who helped her find the right combination of medication. Within weeks, she was back at work. Chronic pain is very complicated – but that doesn’t mean it has to be passively accepted.
Second … if you suffer from chronic pain and have tried relaxation and meditation or similar approaches and it hasn’t worked – ask yourself why. I’m going to be honest with you – I’ve met lots of people who tried these approaches to chronic pain treatment once or twice, maybe even without following all of the instructions and said, “It doesn’t work.”
This can be a bit like saying, “I’ve tried baking bread twice and it didn’t work, so obviously baking bread isn’t a good idea. Yes, I did leave out the salt but hey, it’s just one ingredient, what difference could that possibly make?” Just like baking bread, meditation and relaxation take time and experience and until you know what you’re doing, you don’t know which ingredients of the “recipe” you can leave out.
In the next instalment, we’ll talk about how you can make meditation and relaxation work for you.
In the meantime, if you’d like to talk about your issues around chronic pain, send me an email or call me at 604-618-0830 and we’ll see what we can do for you.
6 responses so far ↓
1 Noni Kateus // Feb 14, 2008 at 3:05 pm
This is such a helpful and information-rich site. Chronic pain and all its ramifications ended my nursing career and the alternative office careers after that. While learning to ignore a high level of pain, I still could not ignore the fatigue accompanying it. I was not financially prepared to quit working early, so I needed to supplement my social security but a traditional job was out of the question. Being active and keeping your brain busy are so important (at least to me) in dealing with chronic pain. Ideally, I needed to find a free and legitimate work from home job; obvious benefits of a work at home job for me (or anyone else with chronic pain issues) make a long list. Seems to me that many workers suffering chronic pain would be better off away from the stresses of the traditional office setting. Even doing telephone work from home might be a workable solution for someone experienced in office work. At any rate, I know that my pain level is improved (or my perception is better) when I can concentrate on something, and making some $$ is an important bonus. I will surely be reading your posts for a long time!
Thanks again for sharing your insights.
2 isabella mori // Feb 16, 2008 at 10:57 pm
hi noni, and welcome. going to your web site, it looks like you found something that works for you.
work is such an important part of a person’s life; it can be devastating when that’s taken away.
3 Steven Lucas // Mar 5, 2008 at 4:53 am
It has been said for a long time that people can live with anything. Well done for encoraging this positive, forward attitude.
Steven Lucas’s last blog post..Lower Back Pain Relief: Use Medications Sparingly And Maintain Correct Posture
4 isabella mori // Mar 5, 2008 at 6:52 am
hi steven, and thanks for visiting!
yes, people can live with many things. that’s both a blessing and a curse, isn’t it? how well do they live with it? what does that mean to their whole life experience?
answers to that can only be given by each individual …
5 Tammy (I hate rain headaches) Jackson // Mar 11, 2008 at 2:54 pm
I found a good management physician and be up front as to what happened. The American Academy of Pain Management endorsed this type of contract in 1998. (I have included a link below)
It is important when being treated with opiods that you deal with just one source. If you find that the current pain medication is helping - talk to your attending physicia
Tammy (I hate rain headaches) Jackson’s last blog post..By: Life-Problem-Solver
6 dcsimo // Jun 26, 2008 at 9:18 pm
Hi,
I have heard EMDR is a good way to manage pain. I just used and reviewed a CD put out by Mark Grant, a psychologist from Sydney. The CD is based on EMDR techniques, and even though the it is not specifically dealing with pain, I know Mark specialises in treating pain through EMDR. So if you are interested I am pretty sure there is a link on my blog to his site http://dcsimo.blogspot.com/
Cheers.
dcsimo’s last blog post..Review of “Calm and Confident” an audio CD from Mark Grant
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