Chronic Pain Treatment
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Understand how we can provide you treatment to your chronic pain you’ve been suffering for more than 3 months already.
Pain is inevitable in our lives, especially when we are not feeling well. With pain as a component of chronic conditions, chronic pain is emerging as a health concern.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one of the most common reasons why adults ask for medical care is because of chronic pain. In fact, approximately 25% of individuals with chronic pain typically suffer from a condition called chronic pain syndrome (CPS). Chronic pain interferes with these people’s lives, such that it can restrict their movement and everyday activities, reduce their quality of life, and result in anxiety, depression, and dependence on opioids.
It is not normal to always be in pain. Fortunately, there is a way to get relief from the negative effects of chronic pain that are making a lot of us suffer. Our healthcare specialists here at AZ Pain Medicine Clinic offer chronic pain treatments to help you take a breather and resume your daily lives.
What Is Chronic Pain?
Pain is a normal sensation that your body feels in response to an injury or a disease. It is a warning from your nervous system that you need to take good care of yourself. Whenever an injury occurs, or whenever your body falls ill, pain signals travel from the area of the injury up to your spine and to your brain.
The pain usually becomes less intense, and you will eventually stop hurting as your body heals. However, for many people, their pain may continue even after the source of the injury is gone. When this pain lasts for several weeks (even up to years!), this type of pain will become what is known as chronic pain.
What Does Chronic Pain Do To A Person?
Well, chronic pain is a type of pain that is persistent and lasts for three to six months (or even longer) beyond the expected recovery period. So, oftentimes, it can disrupt an individual’s daily life as it downgrades one’s health and functional capabilities. Having chronic pain means that you will feel hurt and aches on a regular basis. So, when chronic pain becomes too much, it can take a toll on your physical and emotional health.
Patients with chronic pain may feel a sharp or dull sensation that may make the affected areas feel like they are burning or aching. This type of pain can affect nearly any part of your body and may be steady or may come and go without any apparent reason. Because of this, a lot of our patients at AZ Pain Medicine Clinic usually face challenges of living with chronic pain.
What Are The Various Types Of Chronic Pain
The most common types of chronic pain include
- headaches
- postsurgical pain
- lower back pain
- post-trauma pain
- pain from arthritis
- pain from nerve damage
- pain resulting from cancer
Who Frequently Experience Prognosis Of Chronic Pain?
Chronic pain can be present in people of all ages, but it is common in older adults. Researchers have also observed that the following patients more frequently receive a prognosis of chronic pain:
- Women
- People who have an injury or have had surgery
- People living with back pain
- People who suffer from diabetes
- People who are overweight or obese
- People who live with fibromyalgia
- People with arthritis
While no one can absolutely tell in advance who will suffer from chronic pain, you will more likely develop chronic pain when you feel stressed, pressured, or unhappy.
Don’t worry, however. If you do develop chronic pain, our health specialists here at AZ Pain Medicine Clinic are all competent and will do our best to help you manage and alleviate your chronic pain.
What Are The Causes Of Chronic Pain?
Here are some known causes of chronic pain:
- Mechanical (musculoskeletal) problems. The main mechanical problems that cause chronic pain include mechanical low back pain, overuse syndromes, osteoarthritis, and, less often, rheumatoid arthritis. Myofascial pain syndrome can also cause chronic pain, as it puts pressure on sensitive trigger points in the muscles.
- Neurological disorders. Chronic pain may also be due to neurological causes, such as diabetic polyneuropathies, trigeminal neuralgia, and spinal stenosis. Diabetic polyneuropathies is a type of nerve damage in most parts of your body that can occur if you have diabetes, while trigeminal neuralgia occurs when a slight stimulation on your face results in pain. Patients with these neurological disorders will commonly need chronic pain treatment.
- Headache. Headaches are a frequent cause of chronic pain. They may also be a result of migraine, overuse of analgesics, cluster-type headaches, and tension-type headaches. In such cases, patients who suffer from chronic pain resulting from headaches will need to discuss with their pain specialists about how they can get chronic pain treatment.
- Psychological disorders. People commonly believe that chronic pain can only result from physical aches. However, psychological disorders can actually also cause chronic pain. For instance, fibromyalgia can make a person feel widespread pain in multiple trigger points on their body. Since this is typically accompanied by fatigue, sleep, memory, and mood issues, the pain can have a strong impact on the patient’s psychological state. For this reason, some patients may require chronic pain psychological treatment.
- A localized disease or generalized disease process. There have also been cases at our clinic where patients experience chronic pain as a result of a continuing problem in a related area. For example, pain in the abdomen can suggest diverticular disease (which is a common condition that causes small bulges to form around the wall of the large intestine), while consistent pelvic pain may be indicative of an inflammation of the fallopian tubes. On the other hand, widespread pain can also mean metastatic cancer, where cancer cells spread to new areas of the body.
No one is safe from chronic pain, and a lot of factors could result in this severe intensity of pain. In fact, some of our patients here at AZ Pain Medicine Clinic have had seemingly no apparent cause at the beginning for the pain that they feel. There have also been cases where remote pathogenic and physical factors have prolonged the pain of a number of our patients. Experiencing chronic pain may lead to disability and maladaptive behavior, so we advise that you consult your pain specialists to pinpoint the cause of your chronic pain.
What Are The Chronic Pain Symptoms?
Chronic pain affects your emotions, your thought processes, your physical health, and even your social life. The continuous pain that you may feel can lead to symptoms in certain areas, such as:
- Mood and Mental Health. Most individuals who suffer from chronic pain are more likely to develop psychological disorders than those individuals who do not suffer from chronic pain. If you or your loved one regularly suffers from chronic pain, you may find yourselves having increased anxiety, suicidal ideas, or a major depressive disorder, among others.
- Cognitive Processes, Brain Function, and Central Neural Systems. Chronic pain will most likely affect the cognitive processes of those who experience it. You may experience something strange in your memory and attention, as well as symptoms related to neurological changes like an abnormality in brain activity.
- Sleep. One common symptom found in patients with chronic pain is disturbed sleep. In most cases, the degree of sleep disturbance depends on the severity of pain that the patient experiences. As for how sleep is important to revitalize your body, early treatment of chronic pain is important to minimize sleep disturbance and avoid one condition to perpetuate.
- Quality of Life and Functionality. A disruption in your life and functionality may also be a symptom of chronic pain, especially when the pain that one feels is severe. An increase in the severity of your pain usually also increases the frequency of interference with your social life, daily activities, and work. Because of this, it is vital that you manage the pain in its early stages before it gets worse.
Here at AZ Pain Medicine Clinic, we try our best to address these symptoms appropriately and suggest chronic pain management techniques that will suit you best. You can come to our clinic for a consultation and discuss with our healthcare specialists how you can ease these symptoms.
How To Address Chronic pain?
Some people may have challenges of managing chronic pain since it is complex and can vary from one patient to another. Consequently, we suggest that you seek medical help as soon as possible when you notice any signs of chronic pain. This way, your AZ Pain Medicine Clinic physicians can easily get the most effective chronic pain treatment for you.
Below are some of the common treatments that our pain specialists at AZ Pain Medicine Clinic may discuss with you:
Medications
If you are wondering how to heal chronic pain, there are a lot of medications available to help you ease your pain. Pain relief medicines for chronic pain can include nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, antidepressants, anti-seizure medications, muscle relaxants, and opioids. Our healthcare staff will recommend the best chronic pain treatment for you, depending on your medical, clinical, and biopsychosocial circumstances.
Restorative Therapies
Restorative therapies are treatments provided by physical therapy (PT) and occupational therapy (OT) professionals. They may include a combination of therapeutic exercise, physiotherapy, or other movement modalities. This type of therapy has a significant role in chronic pain management and will more likely result in positive clinical outcomes.
Interventional Procedures
Interventional pain management, also called interventional pain medicine, is a subspecialty of pain medicine that diagnoses and treats pain, especially chronic pain, with invasive intervention as minimal as possible. This procedure can alleviate pain and minimize oral medications. If you prefer this procedure, you need to discuss taking this chronic pain treatment with our competent medical professionals.
Behavioral Health Approaches
Many studies have already recognized the important relationship between pain and psychological health. After all, psychological factors have an important role in your pain experience and response to pain. With our behavioral health approaches at AZ Pain Medicine Clinic, you can improve your overall pain experience and restore bodily functions as we address the emotional, behavioral, cognitive, and social factors that could have contributed to your pain.
Complementary and Integrative Health Approaches
For natural chronic pain relief, we may also make use of various alternative pain management techniques to help you alleviate your chronic pain.
Chronic pain is a problem that a lot of us suffer from. At AZ Pain Medicine Clinic, you can rest assured that our health specialists use only tried-and-tested methods to help you alleviate the pain that you feel. We can provide excellent pain management and care through our years of experience. We know how terrible persistent chronic pain can be, so we would like to help you get instant pain relief through our available chronic pain treatment.
If you would like to schedule a consultation with our health specialists, you may give us a call here at AZ Pain Medicine Clinic with our phone number at +1-602-368-8800, or you can drop by our Arizona office from 8 am to 6 pm from Mondays to Fridays.