Causes of chronic pain and treatment methods

Causes of chronic pain

Chronic pain can be caused by a disease or by a disorder resulting from an unhealthy lifestyle. For example, poor nutrition, excessive calorie intake or too little exercise can lead to overweight, which puts extra strain on the joints and over time becomes persistent back, lumbar, hip, knee or ankle pain.

When pain is caused by obesity, changing your lifestyle helps eliminate the underlying cause of the pain and thereby reduces the risk of chronic pain. Maintaining physical activity and adopting a healthy diet go a long way toward preventing chronic pain and improving the quality of life of those suffering from chronic pain.

In general, an active lifestyle and healthy nutrition are important. Depending on the pain, walk, jog, do yoga, swim or cycle. Regular movement of the muscles reduces musculoskeletal pain.

Chronic pain worsens quality of life

Whatever causes chronic pain, it is always true that it significantly reduces quality of life. Persistent discomfort causes fatigue, insomnia, and exhaustion, which weaken the immune system and open the door to other illnesses. Constant pain and the resulting inability to be physically active increase stress and anxiety and, in severe cases, can lead to depression.

Options for treating chronic pain

Pain is an extremely complex phenomenon, so its treatment is not simple: cooperation between the patient and the physicians is the only way. If the patient does not follow medical advice, the results of therapeutic interventions remain limited. Eliminating the root cause is the primary objective.

Lifestyle change

You can do the most to improve your condition yourself. By changing your lifestyle — primarily your diet and physical activity — you can contribute to improvement or at least to maintaining your condition.

Medications

Drug treatment of pain is effective for acute pain, but in the long term you must reckon with certain consequences. With prolonged use tolerance develops and the effect becomes milder. This requires increasing the dose, which in turn leads to stronger side effects.

Physiotherapy

Physiotherapeutic procedures have the advantage of being drug-free, so you do not have to worry about side effects. Treatments can be performed not only in clinics but also safely at home without a doctor present. Effective devices are barely larger than a mobile phone.

For pain relief, among others, TENS and MENS (nerve stimulation) treatments, EMS — muscle stimulation, ultrasound therapy, softlaser therapy, magnetic therapy, deep heat and cold therapy are suitable. Each of these has an analgesic effect, however different types of pain respond better to different methods.

Product recommendations for pain treatment

EMS, muscle stimulation treatment is effective for diseases of muscles and joints. It can be used for sports injuries, ligament strains, muscle stiffness and muscle weakness.

Softlaser treatment, ultrasound therapy and deep heat therapy introduce energy into the treated area, warm the muscles and improve blood circulation, thereby reducing pain and accelerating healing.

Cold therapy cools the treated area and is suitable for reducing fresh muscle and joint injuries and inflammations. The cooling has a pain-relieving effect when the skin temperature of the affected area drops by at least 15°C in a short time.

For chronic joint pain, for example rheumatoid arthritis, use heat therapy.

Surgical intervention

Surgery is a radical way to reduce pain. It is generally considered after other methods have failed or when the intervention is medically necessary. Nerve endings that cause pain are destroyed by heat or freezing. The method is safe but permanent and can damage not only pain receptors but other nerves as well, such as receptors for cold, heat or touch.

My recommendations:

• strive to find out the cause of the pain
• if the cause is known, targeted treatment can be performed
• always start with the least risky physiotherapeutic method and consider surgery only as a last resort!