9 Smart strategies for living with chronic pain

It’s a challenge living with chronic physical pain.  If you are facing that challenge, you are not alone. Next time in you’re in a crowd, look around – 1 of every 5 adults you see could be living with chronic pain. This represents around 50 million adults who experience chronic pain on a daily basis.  This news is from a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimating that 20.4 percent of the U.S. adult population has chronic pain, defined as pain felt most days or every day for at least the past six months.

Pain is considered a normal reaction to an injury but should go away once the body is healed. However, if the injury included nerve damage, the pain may persist for months or even years. Even diseases and infections can lead to chronic pain and for some problematic pain, there is no cause to be found.

While the report found a higher prevalence of chronic pain among elderly and women, men tend to be less verbal about seeking help with their physical pain.  Men often “tough it out” or just accept it and keep quiet. It’s hard for men to admit they are feeling physical pain but keeping it under wraps often leads to emotional distress making the situation worse.

Bottled up pain and discomfort eventually begins to affect other areas of your life. You’re more irritable, withdrawn, less communicative. You’re confidence in yourself and your abilities to do work or be around others, begins to crumble.

Generally, the treatment for chronic pain focuses more on managing and not curing it. The goal is to reduce the pain as much as possible while increasing people’s ability to move and function improving their day-to-day lives. For many years, the typical pain management used was for physicians to prescribe a pain medication in the form of opioids. Opioid use has exploded in recent years into a devastating tragedy of lives lost to misuse, abuse, and addiction to this form of treatment. While death rates associated with opioid overdose have increased for virtually every population group, the rates are highest among males under age 50.

Smart strategies for pain control

Fortunately, health care facilities have begun taken steps to control the misuse of opioids for pain management. There are also many effective strategies men can use besides turning to a pill for pain control. It begins with adopting more positive thinking and action. While these tools may not take the pain completely away, at the very least, they distract pain’s grip by providing a toolbox of pain management techniques helping you feel more comfortable. Besides, they’re a far better alternative than being hopelessly hooked on opioids.

1. 1. Open up to others – If you never say anything about chronic pain, how will your family or friends know you are suffering? Tell them what’s going on. You’d be surprised to find how supportive people can be once they know what you are going through. When you talk about it to others, they can help you get through tough times. For instance, if you have to cancel an outing with friends due to pain, tell them why. Finding an alternative such as them coming to you or getting a cup of coffee closer to your home can make the trip less daunting.
   2. Learn to laugh – They say laughter is the best medicine and when it comes to pain, they’re right. Not only does a good belly laugh provide stress relief but it can trigger a surge of endorphins, those feel-good hormones shown to be natural painkillers. Frequent laughter also promotes more positivity leading to a relaxed and focused take on the situation.
   3. Ease pain with exercise – Talk about a Catch-22 – you hurt so you don’t exercise. But by not exercising, your muscle tone and strength decrease making pain worse.  No one says you have to be an athlete to exercise.  Even mild, gentle movements will release endorphins, chemicals helping you feel better, lifting your mood while blocking your pain.  Consider yoga, Pilates, Tai chi, walking or whatever form of exercise you and your doctor feel is best for you.
   4. Chill out – Practicing relaxation may seem obvious but few of us actually take the time to stop what we’re doing to calm our minds. Simple stress management techniques such as deep breathing, meditation, and biofeedback relax your body helping ease pain.
   5. Listen to the music – Here is another form of distraction- listening to music. A 2006 study from Case Western and the Cleveland Clinic found chronic pain patients who listened to music for an hour a day reported a 12 to 21 percent reduction in their pain compared to people who did not listen melodies.  Music appears to have the ability to lower pain intensity because it takes a person’s mind off their suffering.
   6. Stay away from alcohol – Some people will resort to using alcohol as a sleep aid for a good night’s sleep. This is a bad idea.  Although a drink can help you fall asleep, as the alcohol breaks down, it leads to shallow sleep, reduces important REM sleep and can even keep you awake.  This only results in a restless night and lack of sleep.
   7. Get a massage – Massages feel great and can result in significant pain reduction along with reduction of anxiety. Massage therapy has been shown to boost levels of endorphins and serotonin – the body’s natural pain killers and mood regulators – and to reduce stress hormone levels.
   8. Consider acupuncture – This ancient practice has been around a long time for a reason – it works. Tiny needles are inserted into specific points in the body focusing on correcting imbalances of energy known as qi or chi.  Even though there is no scientific evidence of acupuncture’s effectiveness, research published from Nature Neuroscience online found that depending on the placement of needles affects the activity of adenosine, an amino acid that can ease pain.
   9. Kick a smoking habit – Smoking a cigarette may bring temporary relief from stress and pain but at a high price.  Resorting to a quick smoke can actually make pain worse by slowing down any healing, reducing circulation and raising your risk of degenerative disc problems such as low back pain.