Chronic Pain
By Christine Ferch
Chronic pain refers to pain that is continual and typically lasts for more than six months. After an injury or illness this type of pain is ongoing even after things have healed. The nervous system still reacts to the pain signal for weeks, months and years after.
If you are experiencing pain daily in areas of the body, in most cases, this may be a position in the body where you sustained an injury and is experienced by those with arthritis. This pain can range each day, some days you may wake up and feel as if you never had the pain, to begin with, other days, the pain is so debilitating it affects your ability to carry out your daily tasks and responsibilities. There is a reduction in motivation and productivity as all your cognitive and emotional processes are focused on reducing the pain and make it through the day.
Chronic pain is a terrible experience which can last many years or for a person’s life span and can take a toll on someone’s mental, physical, and emotional well-being. Dealing with chronic pain means accepting some days will be better than others; there will be days the housework or career responsibilities put on hold. Having a job that understands your limits and will not reprimand you or have you fear you will lose your job for sick days which may add up. There is accepting there are certain activities you will not be able to engage in and other hobbies which keep our minds fresh with confidence, capability, and growth for the future. When there is a struggle with adjusting to a new life of chronic pain, one may experience a different perspective on life, it may be positive, or it may be harmful. This negative viewpoint can lead to mental health concerns such as depression which can exacerbate chronic pain.
Physical: Chronic pain affects our physical selves, such as our body as we may be limited in what we can carry out. When we are unable to engage or are limited in the amount of vigorous exercise we engage in, we may experience weight gain. Your body needs to adjust how your body processes food during a slower metabolic rate. Weight change can take some time to adjust, but in time and proper nutrition, the body will adjust itself. More importantly, and is helpful for chronic pain, is in engaging in short, but multiple forms of physical exercise approved by your Doctor or Physiotherapist daily. When one struggles with this physical component, the mental component can play a more significant role as it activates negative thinking and ignites the emotional component.
Chronic pain plays with a lot of different emotions some days, and you may feel as if every seven-dwarf travelled through your mind and your body. You fall asleep at night hopeful and anxious, unsure if you can wake up and spring out of bed or cry out in pain and sadness, nothing will get done that day. We engage in negative thinking, which perpetuates negative emotions from anger, shame, guilt, sadness and pending how long the chronic pain has been affecting someone, despair. These emotions and thoughts patterns decrease our motivation which reduces movement, instructions from health professionals, and begins to weigh on us in a cyclical pattern through the systems just mentioned.
However, although it feels like a dark tunnel with soft lighting along the way, there are ways to brighten the light or see a brighter one at the end of the tunnel. Here are a few things which can help work through chronic pain:
- Maintain contact with Doctors, Physiotherapists and kinesiologists and build an exercise schedule suitable to the spectrum of pain you feel each day, and what you are capable of with each level of pain you experience
- Talk to a mental health professional. This does not necessarily mean obtaining a mental health diagnosis as it is to work through the emotions and thoughts you are experiencing. Additionally, a counsellor can validate your feelings and frustrations with your experience and can be done on a semi-weekly or monthly basis
- Engage in mindfulness techniques. These can be learned from your counsellor and can be helpful to reduce tension in other parts of the body, thus creating relaxation. This relaxation can reduce the feelings of pain
- See a nutritionist build a meal plan suited to the slower lifestyle and eat your favourite treats in moderation. As the worst pain days calls for chocolate and ice cream or whatever comfort food you see.
- Ask your Doctor about non-addictive pharmaceuticals, trigger joint injection,
- Ask your physiotherapist about electrical stimulation or traction
- Try and reduce stress and find supports for when you experience your worst days and they can assist in carryout tasks which need to be done such as picking kids up from school
- Reduce substance use to curb negative mental health effects
- Try and maintain a sleep routine
- Reduce smoking as smoking affects blood flow which can exacerbate the pain
If you are experiencing chronic pain and want to work through the components of your experience or have questions or comments, you can contact us at admin@ovcs.ca. Read more on our other posts here.
