Chronic pain, Pain, Acute pain, Hurt, Agony, Torment, Ache, Sting, Back pain, Headache, Aching, Burning, Shooting, Squeezing, Stiffness, Stinging, Throbbing
What is Chronic Pain?
Chronic pain is pain that lasts for over three months. The pain can be there all the time, or it may come and go. It can happen anywhere in your body.
Chronic pain can interfere with your daily activities, such as working, having a social life, and taking care of yourself or others. It can lead to depression, anxiety, and trouble sleeping, which can make your pain worse. This response creates a cycle that’s difficult to break.
Root Cause of Disease
There are many causes of chronic pain. It may have started from an illness or injury, from which you may have long since recovered from, but the pain remained Or there may be an ongoing cause of pain, such as arthritis or cancer. Many people suffer chronic pain in the absence of any past injury or evidence of illness.
Symptoms
Chronic pain can come in many different forms and appear across your body. Common types of chronic pain include:
- Arthritis, or joint pain
- Back pain
- Neck pain
- Cancer pain near a tumor
- Headaches, including migraines
- Testicular pain (orchialgia)
- Lasting pain in scar tissue
- Muscle pain all over (such as with fibromyalgia)
- Neurogenic pain, by damage to the nerves or other parts of the nervous system
Chronic pain often leads to other symptoms and conditions, including:
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Fatigue, or feeling overly tired most of the time
- Insomnia or trouble falling asleep
- Mood swings
Causes
- Years of poor posture
- Improper lifting and carrying of heavy objects.
- Being overweight puts excess strain on the back and knees
- A congenital condition such as curvature of the spine
- Traumatic injury
- Wearing high heels
- Sleeping on a poor mattress
- No obvious physical cause
- Ordinary aging of the spine
- Normal aging may affect bones and joints
- Muscle strains and sprains
- Nerve damage
- Broken bones
- Lyme disease
- Inflammatory bowel disease(IBD)
- Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)
- Endometriosis, is when tissue in the uterus grows outside of it
- Surgery
Home Remedies to treat Chronic Pain
Remedy – 1: Fish oil
Fish oil is known for its anti-inflammatory properties, and inflammation plays a large role in pain. researchers instructed patients with neck or back pain to take 1200 milligrams a day of fish oil supplements with eicosatetraenoic and docosahexaenoic acid.
Product link: Fish oil
Remedy – 2: Lavender Essential Oil
The lavender essential oil may help relieve pain naturally. People use lavender oil for pain relief, to help sleep, and to ease anxiety. Lavender oil has pain-relieving, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidant effects in animals. Do not ingest essential oils, as they can be toxic. If applying an oil topically, always dilute it in carrier oil.
Product link: Lavender essential oil
Remedy – 3: Peppermint essential oil
Procedure:
The peppermint plant has anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, and pain-relieving effects. The active compounds in peppermint oil include carvacrol, menthol, and limonene. Diluted peppermint essential oil as a topical treatment, meaning that they rub diluted oil into the area that feels achy or painful. The researchers also report that applying peppermint oil to the temples and forehead may relieve tension headache pain.
Product link: Peppermint essential oil
Precaution:
Avoid putting peppermint oil on broken skin. It can cause allergic reactions, so do a spot test before using peppermint oil on a painful area. Do not use peppermint oil around children.
Remedy – 4: Acupuncture
Acupuncture is an alternative therapy that advocates believe can help reduce pain.
Acupuncture can help with certain types of pain, including:
- Low back pain
- Neck pain
- Osteoarthritis of knee pain
It may also reduce how frequently people get tension headaches and could help prevent migraine headaches.
Other Remedies
Exercise
Many doctors are saying that people who exercise and maintain a good aerobic condition will improve the most pain conditions. When we work out, then our bodies produce their own versions of painkillers, such as endorphins which are hormones that increase your pain threshold. These hormones interact with the brain receptors, and they can change our perception of pain. When patients are saying that they have too much pain to exercise, then doctors recommend them to start slowly and to do even a little burst of walking or other activity. Also, there was another study in which was said that exercise was moderately effective for the treatment of chronic pain.
Heat therapy
Cold and heat therapy are very powerful natural treatments for getting relief from chronic pain. When you use a hot Epsom salt bath, then it relaxes your mind, and it changes the nervous input from your body to your brain. When you use ice, then it can decrease the inflammation locally. The key to successful natural treatment with these two is to know when to use which. If you have an acute injury, then you should put ice on it right away. If you twist your ankle and it is swollen and painful, and if you use heat in this situation, it will increase the blood flow, and it increases the swelling. But when you have lingering back spasms, then the heat will be the best natural treatment for this situation. Some doctors are recommending to take a warm shower and massaging your back or neck, or whatever body part hurts, under the warm water.
Turmeric
Turmeric is also known as Curcuma longa. This is basically a root. It is often found in spicy foods, and it is very used in Indian cooking. There are many studies in which is shown that turmeric has anti-inflammatory properties which can help in the treatment of chronic pain syndrome. There were some studies in which researchers tested a combination of turmeric with 2 other substances – bromelain and claw on people who suffer from osteoarthritis, and they have noticed relief from the pain in them. Also, these patients took 2 * 650-milligram capsules either 2 or 3 times per day.
Ginger
There are more studies in which is said that this home remedy can help with muscle and joint pain because ginger has phytochemicals that can help to stop the inflammation. There are few side effects related to ginger when it has been taken in small doses.
- Exercise to get muscles moving
- Improve posture
- Yoga
- Tai chi
- Core stability exercises
- Aerobic exercise
- Running
- Swimming
- Use heat and cold
- Stretch
- Arnica is a homeopathic remedy that people can apply directly to the skin to treat muscle pain, swelling, bruising, and minor injuries
Preventions
The following actions can help you cope with your chronic pain and improve your overall health:
- Avoid smoking
- Eat a healthy diet
- Exercise regularly
- Get enough sleep
- Manage your stress
- Try to think positively
- Limit alcohol, which can cause more problems with sleep and pain
- Join a support group for chronic pain to learn from other people with similar conditions
- Don’t try to do too much. Create a daily schedule that includes a few priorities and time for rest and self-care
