Pain Awareness Month - Living With and Healing Chronic Pain

September is Pain Awareness Month. This month focuses on raising awareness about the many people in society who suffer from chronic pain.

Many people with chronic pain do not have reasonable solutions. This can lead to a slow decline in their quality of life. It affects their physical, mental, and emotional health over time.

A study looked at how chronic pain affects people's emotions and behavior. It compared those with chronic pain to those without it. The study clearly showed that pain sufferers are much more likely to:

• Experience more stress
• Have more bad moods
• Become more easily agitated
• Develop depression
• Feel tired and weary

This Pain Awareness Month, we want to raise awareness about chronic pain, especially back pain. We will also share wellness solutions to help manage this pain effectively.

What Is Chronic Pain?

Chronic pain is defined as any pain lasting longer than 12 consecutive weeks. It lasts for a long time, often for months, while acute pain starts suddenly and heals quickly. Chronic pain, also known as chronic pain syndrome, can become more accessible to handle. This allows a person to ignore or live with it for long.

According to the National Institutes of Health, 25 million Americans suffer daily pain. Eight million of these daily pain sufferers have pain that interferes with their everyday activities. Many people suffer from pain in silence. They’re unsure of what’s causing their pain, and their symptoms may be too vague to know how to treat them.

Chronic pain affects every person differently, making it a complex condition that requires identifying the root cause. Chronic pain can’t be measured. Chronic pain is hard to pinpoint because it can occur in different areas of the body at various times.

Chronic Pain Causes

Finding the cause of chronic pain can be frustrating. People with this pain often struggle to understand why it continues. The reasons for ongoing pain are not always clear. Finding the cause of your pain can help you manage chronic pain better.

Chronic pain has common causes that can be managed holistically to improve quality of life.

Arthritis

Over 25% of American adults have arthritis, which includes over 100 inflammatory diseases affecting the joints and nearby tissues. Arthritis symptoms can vary depending on the underlying cause, but it’s a significant cause of daily chronic pain. Generally, people with arthritis experience joint stiffness, inflammation, and soreness in one or more joints throughout the body.

Repeated movements from work or sports can cause osteoarthritis. This type of arthritis damages the joints over time because of constant use and stress. Other common types of arthritis include gout and rheumatoid arthritis.

Fibromyalgia

Technically, fibromyalgia is considered a form of arthritis. Also known as widespread pain, fibromyalgia is pain that spreads across the entire body. Because it isn’t a localized pain, it’s challenging to identify a single underlying cause of fibromyalgia. People with fibromyalgia feel pain more strongly and experience it all over their bodies.

Fibromyalgia can cause sleep disturbances and can lead to emotional and psychological distress if not managed. Widespread pain can also make concentrating challenging, affecting the person’s ability to work or go to school.

Sciatica

Sciatica is pain that can be felt on one side of the buttock or down one leg. It starts at the lower back and travels down the sciatic nerve, producing pain and possibly tingling or numbness. Sciatica is not a condition but a symptom indicating a more profound, underlying health problem.

The sciatic nerve can get pinched due to a herniated disc, disc wear, or spinal stenosis, which is the narrowing of the spine. These conditions and others can pressure the sciatic nerve, producing sciatica.

People experience sciatica in different ways and may feel pain worsens when standing, walking, or sitting.

Spinal Stenosis

Spinal stenosis occurs when some components of the spine change over time. The discs, vertebrae, muscles, and ligaments can weaken over time, causing the spinal column to narrow.

As the spine narrows, pressure builds up on the spinal nerves, causing pain, tingling, or numbness in the area. Spinal stenosis usually affects the neck and lower back, and lumbar stenosis can lead to sciatica pain.

Wellness Solutions for Healing Chronic Pain

Many people live with chronic pain because they aren’t sure of how to manage or correct it. Life gets busy, and it’s expected to sacrifice your health for work and family responsibilities. Over time, it becomes natural to just put up with pain, and you may become good at ignoring it.

But listening to your body is the essential first step in healing. Your body produces pain to alert you to a problem that needs addressing. Chronic pain often signals that the body needs better health through more exercise, a healthier diet, and reduced stress.

In Pain Awareness Month, advocates want to promote safe and natural ways to manage chronic pain. They focus on methods that do not involve medications like opioids. You can choose other wellness options to help improve your life and reduce pain.

The pain solutions below help manage pain. They also address health issues to prevent the condition from worsening.

Exercise

A lack of exercise often worsens chronic pain. It becomes a vicious circle—the more pain you feel, the less you want to exercise. But the less you exercise, the more pain you will feel.

Physical activity helps increase mobility and range of motion, often limited by arthritis and fibromyalgia. Some of the exercises you can perform to help heal chronic pain include:

• Walking: One of the most straightforward but most beneficial forms of exercise, walking can help ease chronic pain. Daily walking gets your muscles and joints moving and helps reduce stress.
• Strength Training: Chronic back, neck, and hip pain often stem from weak muscles. Building your leg, glute, back, and shoulder strength can help prevent degenerative conditions that lead to chronic pain.

Relaxation

For many people, pain intensifies during relaxation and sleep because nothing distracts them from it. However, improving relaxation and prioritizing restful activities can help you manage pain more effectively.

Muscle tension is a significant reason why people experience pain. Stiff, sore muscles need intentional care and relaxation to alleviate stress. Some relaxation solutions for healing chronic pain include:

• Massage Therapy: Massage therapists use their hands to work on tense muscles. They help loosen and smooth fibers and tissues that have tightened because of stress and lack of stretching. Massage therapists also use special techniques to release pain in certain joints.

• Yoga and Stretching: Daily yoga or deep stretching can boost your flexibility. It also increases blood and oxygen flow to your joints, helping improve your posture and alignment. Yoga, specifically, is also a proven way to enhance mindfulness and reduce the effects of stress.

Overcoming Chronic Pain

Pain Awareness Month is a way for us to discuss the widespread issue of chronic pain and the hidden issues it leads to. When people are in pain, it causes emotional and mental disruption that prevents them from living a better life. In turn, this can have an impact on families and communities.

Learning about chronic pain and its treatments can reduce reliance on painkillers, helping people lead healthier and happier lives.

If you have chronic pain, you can improve your daily life by maintaining good posture and reducing pressure on your spine. Shop Relax The Back online for work, home, exercise, and travel support products. Find the right wellness solution that suits your needs.