Persistent pain is very common and affects over 8 million people in the UK alone. It often doesn’t respond to conventional medical interventions and needs a different kind of approach. But how do you know if you suffer from persistent pain?
What is persistent pain?
Persistent pain, also known as chronic pain, is pain that continues for three or more months after an injury. Persistent pain doesn’t respond to conventional medical interventions and needs a different kind of approach. However, there are activities you can do to ease the pain.
Why do we even suffer from pain?
Pain, whilst unpleasant, is a really important response mechanism. When an injury occurs, specific nerves recognise this as pain, which in turn triggers the body’s defence and repair mechanisms. Defence, to stop the individual from making the problem worse and repair, to hopefully make the problem better! When the pain response works correctly, it is beneficial: if it hurts, you are less likely to try doing whatever caused the pain, in the future.
Persistent pain treatment
There are many things that you can do to manage the pain yourself. Keeping active, performing light exercises and stretches are great to start with. That along with learning to pace your activities so that you don’t trigger a flare-up of your pain, as well as setting goals and priorities are all very important and can help you to maintain a fulfilling lifestyle.
Both Osteopathy and Physiotherapy can provide relief from persistent pain as well if the pain is becoming too much.
Get through the pain with support
Understanding the triggers of chronic pain is important, not just for the individual suffering, but also for their family and friends, so they can help provide support. Long-term physical pain can lead to mental health issues if not addressed correctly. Support groups exist too, helping people to understand they are not alone, education about how pain works and providing practical hints, tips and remedies that might help reduce the impact. Online pain toolkits are also available.
What next?
If you suffer from persistent or chronic pain, but are not sure what to do next, why not book an initial consultation with one of our qualified Osteopaths. They will be able to evaluate what might be causing the pain and advise on a course of action. Feedback from our clients shows Osteopathy can be a very effective form of relief from longer term pain.
