Notes from the author: The following article was written for another purpose other than this blog but was unacceptable. Since I believe in these words simply don't want them filed away in dark, dusty file cabinets and unread. Sharing one's thoughts with others for no other purpose than to contribute to another's well being is my only excuse for posting this here. As for the photograph, it's happened to be the one most available.
Today there’s no need to suffer the agonies of chronic pain since medical scientists are knowledgeable about pain centers in the body and have various new methods of treatment. That sounds like such a terrific idea and medically speaking it is but the new found drugs have side effects, cause untold amounts of addiction in those with no foresight into how dangerous pain medicines can be. Pain, physical and mental, is necessary to some degree.
Pain is a symptom of a larger problem and to block the pain altogether is to blot out the blueprint to its cures. Reading the blueprints of pain is what led scientists to discover the secrets of the pain sensors and to find ways of blocking them. Patients too can learn to read their minor and less severe pains and associate them with activities, thoughts and other associative causes.
Understanding your pain and its necessity
The purpose of pain is to alert the sufferer that something is wrong. They’ve sprained an ankle, a back injury has resulted in disk problems, and a persistent headache lingers and on and on goes the causes of the pain. The first suggestion is to relax, assess the problem with your physician—if the problem with pain has escalated that far— and take only the amount of pain medication needed to alleviate the pain.
Find other ways to keep the pain bearable. Try the least traumatic and least potentially addictive methods first. What you don’t want is to create an even bigger problem by becoming addicted to prescription drugs and pain killers.
New treatments for chronic pain
Drugs, implants and electrical stimulation stop pain that once were thought to be psychosomatic. Physicians fifty years ago took near complete control of their patient’s health and hearing from a trusted doc that your illness was ‘in your head’ was a blow to one’s belief in their mental capacity. Not to mention what they thought of their doctors. The sentence above refers to doctors, instead of a doctor because if one could not find out what caused the pain, the pain sufferers went looking elsewhere.
Now that’s changed. Doctors have known for centuries that pain was brain and nerve centered but what they didn’t know was how to turn it off. When they told patients the pain was caused by stress or worry and suggested ways of alleviating that as a possible method of doing away with chronic pain, they weren’t far off the track. They had some vague notion that the pain was caused by pain sensors reacting to life stresses that caused jammed nerves, over-reactions to stimuli and other subtle irrational abnormalities in the human condition.
What they didn’t have was a pill or a liquid tonic that would cure it. They now have excellent treatment sources. Has that alleviated the problem? Yes and no; it has allowed patients to live a more productive life in spite of their pain but as it always happens, it has created other problems. Addictions are far more common than they used to be and fewer people are resorting to old fashioned self-help remedies.
Technology comes to the rescue and is now the medical community is solving these pain puzzlers.
According to WebMD.com,“scientists have learned how to manipulate those chemical messengers to change the way they interact with the brain's signals.” Drugs interact with brain chemicals to turn off the pain; MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) show where the pain originates in the brain and what nerve pathways it travels to post the red flag of pain at some local site.
How do these chronic pain relievers work?
Pain is alleviated from different angles: Drugs attack the nerves rendering it unable to carry pain messages; drug pumps send relief to nerve roots and while not giving up totally on psychosomatic medicine doctors still insist on psychotherapy, relaxation and cognitive therapies.
Possibly what’s changed in the physician’s tool box of treatments is the availability of ways of stopping chronic pain and the emergence of pain specialists. Once, no too many years ago, pain clinics were unheard of, regular clinics and doctors who worked with the local hospitals in treating the citizens were all that was needed. They understood pain as a part of illnesses and of living in general.
Pain clinics have sprung up in the last ten to fifteen years like mushrooms in a wooded area after a rain. Unfortunately, not all of them are legitimate. Many are. And most are legitimate as to credentials possibly but illegal as to the dispensing of drugs and a failure to stop milking their cash cows to satisfy their need for money and looking the other way when drug dealers come calling.
This practice has become an embarrassment to the medical community who has worked long and hard to find reasons for pain. In their dedication to healing the sick they hadn’t foreseen the outcome of what excessive debts caused by high medical school bills thus their need for adequate compensation to run their clinics would do to their profession. Medicine has succumbed to the sins of society and far too many would be doctors are taking up other vocations.
The amazing dedicated scientists who are genuine pain specialist take their jobs seriously and they should. Pain is not pleasant. The first stop shop for pain relieving is over the counter pain relief medications such as acetaminophen and the non-steroidal NSAIDS (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.
These drugs work by trial and error, if one doesn’t work try another. As long as they work there’s no need for stronger potential addictive drugs. But even with these drugs caution must be taken. All drugs have side effects and when taking them read the directions carefully and take the least amount needed. Be especially aware that ibuprofen can cause ulcers and should never be taken on an empty stomach.
Old drugs with new purposes
Knowledge is sometimes learned by observation. Anticonvulsant drugs were designed to prevent seizures but now they’re being used to treat some types of pain. Scientist has yet to figure out how they stop pain but as long as they work they don’t argue over their use. They know it has to do with nerve related pain and prescribe them accordingly for neuralgia, especially neuralgia caused by shingles.
Nerve blocks, electrical stimulation, “pace-maker type devices” that dispense pain medication, spinal drug pumps, surgical procedures and counseling are used in acute pain relief. Acupuncture, once derided in the west as quackery, is now an effective and an understood way of pain relief. Pain is here to stay and so are inventive methods of treatment.
What then can be expected as the next great best way to treat pain? Understanding the reasoning behind pain with each sufferer learning more about their body and what it can and cannot tolerate may be the emphasis of pain relief of the future. Beginning education classes where children begin learning in kindergarten about health will go far in having them take better care of their bodies. More rest will be emphasized as an overall best cure option.
Small intermittent rest period for back pain may prove to relieve pain from standing on one’s feet for long hours. Knowing why that might work is part of the treatment. Resting on the sofa instead of standing at the kitchen sink cooking relieves the pressure from the spine. More reliance on deep breathing as a means of aerating muscles and relieving their tensions may be another way chronic pain can be relieved. Stay tuned.
