• Past injuries or surgeries
• Back problems
• Migraines and other headaches
• Arthritis
• Nerve damage
• Infections
• Fibromyalgia, a condition in which people feel muscle pain throughout their bodies
• Other invisible illnesses such as Lupus, MS or Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome.

Symptoms

Chronic pain can range from mild to severe. It can continue day after day or come and go. The pain can feel like:

• A dull ache
• Throbbing
• Burning
• Shooting
• Squeezing
• Stinging
• Soreness
• Stiffness

Sometimes pain is just one of many symptoms, which can also include:

• Feeling exhausted despite rest
• Loss of appetite
• Sleep disturbances (I’m writing this at 2:30am)
• Mood changes
• Physical Weakness
• Depletion of energy

Chronic Pain and Your Mental Health

Chronic pain can interfere with your daily life, keeping you from doing things you want and need to do. It can wear on your self-esteem and make you feel angry, depressed, anxious, and frustrated. A persistant feeling of sadness may accompany Chronic Pain. Often, people with Chronic Pain have to give up work, hobbies and activities they enjoy, which leads to further depression, etc.

Fighting Back

With such a high prevalence of Chronic Pain in North America, how does one fight back? How do you manage living with Chronic Pain and still maintain quality of life? There are a number of ways to manage, such as:

Pain Management Courses

These courses can be a combination of Cognitive Behaviour Theraphy, Meditation and Mindfulness, Injections to help with certain types of pain, and group talk where you have the support of others in a healthy moderated environment. There are also online pain management courses for those unable to get to programs in other locations. These include:

Pain Foundations BC

Online Therapy Pain Course

Pathway Through Pain

Mind Body Pain Clinics

On Amazon.com, you can also purchase the following – click each title to link directly to Amazon:

Pain Management Tools

There are a number of tools available that may help you with your Chronic Pain, and are worth trying.

TENs Unit

Mindfulness For Pain

Mindfulness Solution

Infrared Solutions

Hypnotic Techniques for Pain Management

Cognitive Behaviour Therapy Workbook

It is my sincere hope that some of these suggestions may be just what you need to help you manage your Chronic Pain. Don’t forget to check for Pain Management Services at your local hospital as well. They often run classes of 4-8 weeks that can help you learn how to support yourself.

Medication And More

Medications play a huge role in managing your Chronic Pain. Opioids are in the news now as doctors across North America are being forced to scale back the number of prescriptions they write, but there is still a useful place for them and it’s worth discussing with your doctor to see if you can benefit.

Other medications that help include drugs like Cymbalta, Lyrica and Savella for Fibromyalgia pain, Gabapentin for nerve pain, Amitriptyline for anxiety and pain, and supplements like B12, Glucosimine, Magnesium, SAMe and Vitamin D

This article from Medical News today lists a number of essential oils that can help with pain, and discusses other complementary tools such as acupuncture and yoga.

Yoga For Pain Relief

Yoga Essentials

Essential Oils

I hope that some of these suggestions will help you manage your Chronic Pain and give you some relief. If you have any suggestions for products that work well for you that I should consider in a future post, please feel free to leave a comment using this form

Remember…

There Is Always Hope