Living with chronic pain can have an immeasurable impact on your quality of life. Chronic pain is described as pain that has persisted for over 3 months with no cause or pain that hasn’t responded to usual treatments.
Being in pain day in and day out can take its toll on your physical and mental health, and over time, the impact it has can slowly wear you down.
It doesn’t matter how long you have been in pain, for there is something you can do to help you live your life easier and navigate it as best you can.
Make Adjustments
One of the best things you can do is to make adjustments in your life to help you reduce or minimize pain or remove triggers that make you feel worse. It might be that at work, you need to use a different chair to make sitting for long periods more comfortable, you might need to use cushions, change your working hours to make things easier or stop doing certain activities to help you manage your pain. Look at what you are able to do, what makes the pain worse, and how you can adapt your life to make things easier.
Use Aids
Depending on the type or cause of your pain, the exact aids you might need to use can vary. You might find a wheelchair can help you get out and not be in too much pain from walking long distances, handrails can improve stability, adjustable beds can alleviate pain when sitting and sleeping, or using compression tights or supports can help you reduce pain levels in body parts or joints. Do some research into what aids are available for your specific needs, and then implement them in your life to see if they can help you.
Alternatively, you can look into alternative forms of pain relief such as pain relief gels, heat and cold therapy, acupuncture, acupressure, and massage therapy, and you can shop for CBD and THC at My Pain Center to add your current medications to help you find relief.
Don’t Be Too Hard On Yourself
The reality is, when you are dealing with pain that doesn’t seem to let up, you aren’t going to be the same person you were before the pain, nor might you be able to do everything you used to be able to do. Understanding this and accepting your new normal can allow you to make the best of what you have now rather than foreign yourself to do things you previously were able to when you were pain-free.
Try Therapy
Not everyone deals with ongoing pain in the same way, and not everyone experiences pain at the same levels. This can be hard to get your head around, especially if you you have a condition with hypersensitivity to pain such as fibromyalgia. It can be a good idea to talk to a therapist to help you understand how you feel, make sense of your new normal, and express yourself without fear of judgment or someone giving unsolicited advice.
Get Help For Addiction To Painkillers
But with that said, you should keep in mind that a lot of people will look for escapism when dealing with chronic pain. While yes, it’s very understandable, it does mean having to rely on opioids heavily. Now, most doctors are very cautious when it comes to what they prescribe (especially due to the opioid crisis), and the goal is for you not to grow a dependency on the drugs you get.
But so many people will try to see out more, and for some, this sadly means they’ll eventually need to go to a methadone clinic to get treatment and end the addiction. So, you absolutely need support, and you need to have mental health support. You don’t need to feel alone when dealing with chronic pain.
Conclusion
Living with chronic pain isn’t easy, nor is it something that can be treated easily, if at all. However, there are some things you can do to help you adjust and get the most out of your life as it is now.
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