Chronic Pain and Reduction....
While acute pain is a normal sensation triggered in the nervous system to alert you to possible injury and the need to take care of yourself, chronic pain is different. Chronic pain persists. Pain signals keep firing in the nervous system for weeks, months, even years. There may have been an initial mishap sprained back, serious infection, or there may be an ongoing cause of pain, arthritis, cancer, ear infection, but some people suffer chronic pain in the absence of any past injury or evidence of body damage.
About 100 million Americans suffer from chronic pain, defined as pain that lasts longer than six months. Chronic pain can be mild or excruciating, for a short time or continuous, merely inconvenient or totally incapacitating.
Experts in pain management estimate 20 per cent of those having surgery each year are experiencing persistent pain at the site of their operation one year after surgery, and that about 5 per cent of those people have severe ongoing pain.
No test can measure the intensity of pain, no imaging device can show pain, and no instrument can locate pain precisely The patient's own description of the type, duration, and location of pain may be the best aid in diagnosis.
Chronic pain can be divided into "nociceptive" caused by activation of nociceptors. (A nociceptor is a receptor of a sensory neuron or nerve cell that responds to potentially damaging stimuli by sending signals to the spinal cord and brain) and "neuropathic" (caused by damage to or malfunction of the nervous system).
This process, called nociception, usually causes the perception of pain Nociceptive pain may be divided into "superficial" and "deep", and deep pain into "deep somatic" and "visceral". Superficial pain is caused by activation of nociceptors in the skin or superficial tissues. Deep somatic pain is caused by stimulation of nociceptors in ligaments, tendons, bones, blood vessels, fasciae and muscles, and is dull, aching, poorly-localized pain.
Neuropathic pain is divided into "peripheral" (originating in the peripheral nervous system) and "central" (originating in the brain or spinal cord). Peripheral neuropathic pain is often described as "burning", "tingling", "electrical", "stabbing", or "pins and needles".
Visceral pain originates in the viscera (organs). Visceral pain may be well-localized, but often it is extremely difficult to locate, and several visceral regions produce "referred" pain when damaged or inflamed, where the sensation is located in an area distant from the site of pathology or injury.
Is there any treatment?
Medications, acupuncture, local electrical stimulation, and brain stimulation, as well as surgery, are some treatments for chronic pain. Some physicians use placebos (fake treatments), which in some cases has resulted in a lessening or elimination of pain. Psychotherapy, relaxation and medication therapies, biofeedback, and behavior modification may also be employed to treat chronic pain.
The most common treatments for pain include analgesic pain relievers (aspirin, acetaminophen, and ibuprofen), acupuncture, anticonvulsants, antidepressants, migraine headache medicines, biofeedback, capsaicin, chiropractic, cognitive and behavioral therapy, counseling, COX-2 inhibitors, electrical stimulation, exercise, hypnosis, lasers, magnets, nerve blocks, opioids, physical therapy and rehabilitation, R.I.C.E.Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation, and surgery.
Prognosis?
Many people with chronic pain can be helped if they understand all the causes of pain and the many and varied steps that can be taken to undo what chronic pain has done. Scientists believe that advances in neuroscience will lead to more and better treatments for chronic pain in the years to come. One very promising treatment comes from a South Korean Scientist. it’s called Powerstrips by a company called FG Xpress and is the only product of it's kind to be listed by the FDA as a Class 1 Medical Device for the treatment and relief of pain.
When applied to the skin these patches have been proven to relieve ALL types of bodily pain, including pain from headaches and migraines. It's safe, effective and it contours to the body with a state of the art water soluble adhesive so that you can put it anywhere and it won’t fall off.
