What is Chronic Pain?

There are 2 types of pain: acute and chronic. Acute pain doesn't last long and usually goes away as your body heals. Chronic pain lasts at least 6 months after your body has healed. Sometimes, when people have chronic pain they don't know what is causing it. Along with discomfort, chronic pain can cause low self-esteem, depression and anger, and it can interfere with your daily activities.

Managing Chronic Pain

Over 100 million Americans experience chronic, or long-lasting pain. Pain impacts everyone differently. It can come from your muscles, nerves or joints. Injury or illness can also cause pain by damaging these tissues.

One of the best things you can do is learn the source of your pain. This will help you manage it. And you will be able to talk with your doctor about the treatments that will do the most good.

Inappropriate treatment can make your pain worse. It can even contribute to future disability. For example, physical therapy will not relieve pain caused by nerve damage. Back surgery will not help muscle pain. It can make it worse.

Only a few types of organs and tissues in our bodies cause pain. Muscle pain is the most common. It is responsible for frequent doctor visits and many types of injuries. About 85% of chornic pain is caused by muscle tissue. Pain can also come from non-muscular areas such as nerves that are pinched or damaged. Joints and tendons also send pain warning signals. Knowing exactly where your pain is located is a good place to start.

How is Chronic Pain Treated?

Treatment of chronic pain usually involves medicines and therapy. Medicines used for chronic pain include pain relievers, antidepressants and anticonvulsants. Different types of medicines help people with different types of pain. You usually use long-acting medicines for constant pain. Short-acting medicines treat pain that comes and goes. Several types of therapy can help ease your pain. Physical therapy (such as stretching and strengthening activities) and low-impact exercise (such as walking, swimming or biking) can help reduce the pain. However, exercising too much or not at all can hurt chronic pain patients. Occupational therapy teaches you how to pace yourself and how to do ordinary tasks differently so you won't hurt yourself. Behavioral therapy can reduce your pain through methods (such as meditation and yoga) that help you relax. It can also help decrease stress. Lifestyle changes are also an important part of treatment for chronic pain. Getting regular sleep at night and not taking daytime naps should help. Stopping smoking helps, too, because the nicotine in cigarettes can make some medicines less effective. Smokers also have more pain than nonsmokers. Most pain treatments will not take away all of your pain. Instead, treatment should reduce how much pain you have and how often it occurs. Talk to your doctor to learn how to best control your pain.

What should I tell my doctor about my pain?

Telling your doctor about your pain will help him or her find the right treatment for you. Tell your doctor where the pain is, how bad it is and how often your pain occurs. Also talk about what makes the pain better or worse. Your doctor may review other health problems (such as arthritis, breathing problems and heart conditions) you may have because these may keep you from doing some types of therapy. Your doctor may also ask if you have had any problems with sleep, mood or anxiety

How to Effectively Rate and Explain YOUR Pain?

Too many times doctors ask for you to rate your pain using the simple, old school scale from 0 to 10, of which 0 being no pain and 10 being the greatest pain. But no two people experience pain alike which makes this 0 to 10 scale a worthless diagnostic tool when it comes to treating chronic pain. There are also so many different sensations of pain such as dull pains, sharp pains, weakness and fatigue pains, shooting pains, tingling, burning, and gripping. Not all of these pains are able to be compared to each other. Each of these pains need to be broken down and rated separately.

Here is a unique pain assessment tool designed by Lois Randall that I encourage everyone dealing with chronic pain to utilize. It is called the

Randall Chronic Pain Scale


What makes this scale unique is that it allows you to create a personal scale using your own words to describe how your pain feels to you and how well (or not) you are able to function at each of the self-described levels. After dealing with chronic pain for several years, Lois Randall realized the need for a better tool for talking with doctors: a scale that would describe her perception of pain. She created a way to describe the intensity of her pain in terms we all understand, and that could easily be revised any time the pain situation changes. Using the traditional range of 0-10, you add a description and examples that describe what you feel and experience. Give a copy of YOUR pain rating scale to your doctors and therapists at each weekly, monthly or quarterly visit. They will be able to understand what you haven't been able to get across to them before. With this simple change in communication, they should now be able to help you manage your pain better than ever before. Click Here to view an example of an actual pain scale used by a fibromyalgia patient.

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