Pain Management- What Are Your Treatment Options?

Pain is the body’s response to injury or illness. At times, pain can become chronic and difficult to manage. There are many different types of pain management treatment options available. Each comes with its own set of risks and benefits. Let’s take a look at some of the most common treatment options and how they can help relieve your chronic pain.

Chiropractic Care for Pain Relief

Chiropractic care can help to correct joint dysfunction. When you suffer from an injury, you can develop subluxations in the spine. A functional chiropractor uses gentle manual adjustments to restore joint function, reduce pain, relax muscles, improve nerve pulse transmissions and increase circulation to the injured area.

Functional chiropractic care is more than just spinal manipulations. The functional chiropractor will take a detailed medical history, complete a biomechanical assessment to look for any issues and use a variety of imaging tests to determine the cause of your pain. Once the cause of the pain is determined, the functional chiropractor may recommend a variety of services to help ease your pain, restore joint function and bring the body back into alignment.

• Spinal manipulations – Spinal manipulations are the hallmark of chiropractic care. The chiropractor will use controlled force to help realign the spine and restore joint function.
• Exercises – Strength training, flexibility exercises and aerobic activities
• Nutritional supplements – Nutritional supplements  help to ensure the body has the nutrients that it needs to heal from the inside out. These supplements include antioxidants to decrease inflammation, increase cartilage in the joints and improve joint function.
• Herbal remedies – There are a number of herbal remedies that can help relieve pain and decrease inflammation. These remedies can be taken internally or applied topically. Turmeric, capsaicin, comfrey, devil’s claw and white willow bark are some of the most potent herbs used for pain.
• Cold laser therapy – Cold laser therapy uses non-thermal lights that pass through the skin to reach damaged tissue and speed up the healing process by increasing cellular metabolism. Additionally, this can be used to reduce inflammation and relieve nerve irritation that may be causing you pain.
• Ultrasound therapy – Ultrasound therapy uses sound waves to stimulate inflamed and damaged tissues in the body. The sound waves help to break down calcifications on the tendons to help them heal properly. Additionally, ultrasound promotes new cellular growth to repair damage.
• Electrical stimulation – Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) provides pain relief by delivering an electrical current to stimulate the nerves. This causes the nerves to send a signal to the brain to scramble pain perception.

Hot and Cold Therapy for Pain Management

Hot and cold therapy helps to decrease swelling and inflammation and increase flexibility in damaged joints, muscles and tendons. Typically, ice is used for new injuries and acute pain. Heat is for older injuries and helps to loosen up the joints and stimulate new tissue growth.

Physical Therapy to Relieve Pain

Chronic pain often requires a multidisciplinary approach, including physical therapy. Physical therapy educates the patient on pain mechanisms and how exercise and massage can relieve pain, strengthen the muscles, increase flexibility and stabilize joints. Physical therapy can be used to ease chronic pain and may include many of the same disciplines used in chiropractic care, including electrical stimulation, hot and cold therapy, nutritional supplementation and ultrasound therapy.

Mind-Body Techniques and Pain Relief

Living with pain can be extremely stressful. Mind-body techniques help a patient relieve stress, reduce pain and learn to cope with their chronic pain. The most common methods used include guided imagery, hypnosis, biofeedback, meditation and yoga. These mind-body techniques help the pain sufferer to center themselves, learn to deal with their pain and relax the body so that it can heal itself.

Food Intolerance Can Be Causing Your Pain

When you suffer from food intolerance and consume the offending food, it can damage the lining of the intestinal tract and lead to toxins, waste and undigested food particles to enter the bloodstream. When this occurs, inflammation throughout the body can occur, resulting in chronic pain. Healing the gut by following an anti-inflammatory diet and taking probiotics can help to relieve the pain you are experiencing.

Chronic pain is a pain! It is a response to an injury or illness in the body. However, sometimes the pain signals get stuck in the on position after the injury or illness has passed. When this occurs, you need to find a way to heal the body and relieve pain. These methods include chiropractic care, hot or cold therapy, correcting food intolerances, using mind-body techniques and physical therapy. With a multifaceted approach, you can relieve chronic pain and begin enjoying life again.

This is a blog post by Vishal Verma