back from appt and chronic pain info

[Guest guest]

Hello all...back from my appt...Thanks Heidi for doing the chat room thing

tonight...how did it go...found this info and thought people would find it

interesting.....hope it helps someone.....Mark

DEALING WITH CHRONIC PAIN

What is Chronic Pain?

One in three Americans (and probably Canadians) suffer from some form of chronic

pain. CHRONIC PAIN is pain that does not go away despite your efforts. It

disrupt your home life and work, affects your emotional and social life, is

often misunderstood by others, and can take over your life. Pain tells you what

you can do, when to do it, and how much to do. It keeps from lviinga full life.

There are, however, steps that you can take to gain back control of your life.

1. Understand the pain. ACUTE PAIN (short term) tells you there si something

wrong and then goes away. It usally starts with an illness or injury. Pain

messages are released through pain 'gates' and go to the brain. The brain

responds by protecting the injury from further damaged by closing down the pain

gates to reducde the level of pain. CHRONIC PAIN doesn't go away. It is constant

and often difficult to treat because the cause of the pain may be unclear or

cannot be removed (i.e. arthritis pain). When the chronic pain bell sounds, it

does not necesarily mean you are injuring yourself so you do not need to stop

the activity.

2. Learn to manage yur pain. Managing pain means making the necessary changes

that can help you meet your physical, emotinal, and social needs.

3. Assess the role chronic pain plays in your life:

Physical Effects

Does the pain make it hard for you to what you want?

Yes or No

Do you put off doing things until the pain goes away?

Yes or No

Do you take pain medications even thought they don't seem to help?

Yes or No

Emotional Effects

Do you often feel angry,depressed, or furstrated because of your pain?

Yes or No

Do you find it hard to accept yourself the way you are now?

Yes or No

Do you ever feel that other people think your pain is not real?

Yes or No

Social Effects:

Are you unable to plan or join in family activities?

Yes or No

Do you find yourself taking more time off from work?

Yes or No

Are you alone most of the time, away from your friends?

Yes or No

4. When you are in pain it is natural to limit activities. This, however, can

make the situation worse by lading you intoa chronic pain cycle.

a. Chronic pain causes you to rest for long periods of time. This lack of

activity cause you to lsoe strength and flexiblity. This leads you to feel less

able to do things and you rest even more.

b. This leads to furstration and depression.

c. this leads you to pish yourself to catch up on everything, tryingto prove to

toehrs as well as yourself that you can stil do what you did before chronic pain

started.

d. Pushing too hard aggravates your symptoms. This causes you to rest more, feel

discouraged and depressed, afraid of doing things.

What Can You Do:

Attempting your pain and taking reponsibility for controlling it is primary for

gaining back your life.

a.. Learn to relax (deep breathing, relaxtion exercises, visualization).

b.. Do a little more each day.

c.. Exeercise according to your body's abilities and needs.

d.. Modify your environment (you can avoid pain by accepting to use tools to

help yourself, i.e. reaching high places with a special stick), the

physiotherapist or the Arthritis Society can help in this regard.

e.. Treat flare-ups as they occur, don't ignore them or you'll find yourself

suffering more than necessary.

f.. Do not overuse medications, dcrease their use slowly (never cold turkey),

medications can lead to other problems such as addiction, depression and

tolerance (if the level of medication isn't helping you'll take more and more to

relieve the pain,eventually, the medication will not work), do not use alcohol

or illegal drugs to dull the pain or depressin as they can lead to physical and

phsychological problems.

g.. Seek out a medical professional who can identify treatable conditions.

h.. Physical therpaists can evaluate problems with strength, flexibility, and

balance. They can give you exercises to help with each. they also can show you

ways tro decrease pain while doing activities.

i.. Use of TENS (a small box-shaped device controlled by a dial that creates

electrical impulses and interrupts pain messages), nerve blocks (local

anaestehetic that blocks the nerves from sending pain messages), Biofeedback

(your body is hooked up to a machine that produces sginalls telling your body

how tense the muscles are) so you can learn to control tension (tension increase

pain), increases your tolerance and may reducde pain.

Compiled from:

Dealing with Chronic Pain, Krames Communications

I hope this finds you and yours well

Mark E. Armstrong

casca@...

www.top5plus5.com

PAI NW Rep

ICQ #59196115