May 05 2008
How to Better Manage Your Pain
Chronic pain sufferers face many challenges in their lives. The inability to know what their energy and pain level will be from day to day is a frustrating part of their life that never goes away. However, there are ways that you can better manage your pain and cope with your condition. These ways will help you have more good days than bad, and keep you releasing your own natural pain killers.
Accept Your Pain
This does not mean “Just deal with it”, far from it. I’m saying that you need to own your pain. Accept that you have it, don’t deny it isn’t there. Also, don’t exaggerate the intensity or level of your pain either. Just take it for what it is, and how it changes, and move past it.
Stay Healthy and Active
Move around, don’t just sit and refuse to move because it hurts when you do. It will hurt more after you become sedentary and try to do the little things again. Make sure that your lifestyle is healthy, no smoking, no drinking, eat the right foods, and make sure that you eat and sleep on a regular basis. Late nights, greasy foods, and a cigarette here and there will harm your body, its responses, and therefore cause more pain for you later on. Aerobic exercise, walking is a fine example, will stimulate your natural painkillers called endorphins. Only 30 minutes a day for five to six days will increase your stamina, your endurance, make you healthier, and release these endorphins.
Relax and Chill Out
Sounds easy, but it’s the hardest step in this process. Learn some breathing exercises, get massages, try some positive visualization. Whatever can make your life a bit less anxious, depressing, or stressful is a positive step in your healing. Muscle tension that occurs in stress will increase your pain, both in length and intensity. Take a personal time out and hurt less.
Keep a Pain Diary
A pain diary can chart your pain and see where there are personal pain triggers. You will be able to see the actual range of your pain, when it’s most likely to occur, what days are better than others. Besides that, you will see if it’s dependent on foods, seasons, or certain activities. A pain diary is a great way to track your days for better tomorrows. Always take it to your doctor visits to help in your total recovery.
Does it work yet??
This post is a particular comfort today. I have chronic bursitis in both hips from figure skating injuries as a teen, and I recently messed up my back and shoulders by carrying two 35-40 lb. buckets of ice, one in each hand, up two flights of stairs in order to wait tables 40 hours a week, while still being a 95 lb. woman under five feet in height. So this really speaks to me. I can not overemphasize how much staying active is key to chronic pain management. I don’t go a day without walking at least an hour or more. It’s the only thing that ensures I’ll be able to walk the next day. As for my back and shoulders, those endorphins from activity do have an effect, and between meditation and the physical therapy I’ll be starting, that should work itself out. I’m not so good at points one and three though. I have most days only the impulse to curse my pain, not own it, and chilling out is something I have to force myself to do. Time to go chill I suppose…