What is chronic pain?
Chronic pain is long-term pain that persists beyond the usual recovery period, or that accompanies a chronic health condition such as arthritis. Chronic pain can be intermittent or continuous. It can affect people to the point of preventing them from working, eating properly, sleeping peacefully, engaging in physical activity or enjoying life.
Many people have that point where they can’t function anymore, and get fatigued from months, sometimes years. Pain does drain quite a lot of energy and make some people’s brain like it’s in a fog.
Chronic pain
There are many causes of chronic pain. It may have started from an illness or injury, from which you may have long since recovered from, but pain remained. Or there may be an ongoing cause of pain, such as arthritis or cancer. Many people suffer chronic pain in the absence of any past injury or evidence of illness.
“I think the benefit of acupuncture is clear, and the complications and potential adverse effects of acupuncture are low compared with medication.”
The “terrible triad”
When pain becomes such a problem that it interferes with your life’s work and normal activities, you may become the victim of a vicious circle. Pain may cause you to become preoccupied with the pain, depressed, and irritable.
Depression and irritability often leads to insomnia and weariness, leading to more irritability, depression, and pain. This state is called the “terrible triad” of suffering, sleeplessness, and sadness.
The urge to stop the pain can make some people drug-dependent, and may drive others to have repeated surgeries, or resort to questionable treatments. The situation can often be as hard on the family as it is on the one suffering with the pain.
Living with chronic pain
Chronic pain is different from acute pain. There’s no simple treatment for chronic pain. Finding the right pain management strategies can help you live better with your pain and hope for some recovery.
Traditional medical treatments, like pain medications, have limited benefit for chronic pain.
Finding the best strategies and techniques for you is the best way to manage your chronic pain.
With acupuncture treatment, our aim is to provide you with relief so that you can get back to living your life to the full.
Relieve Chronic Pain With Acupuncture
The National Institutes of Health states, “Some psychological and/or physical approaches used in traditional Chinese medicine practices, such as acupuncture … may help improve quality of life and certain pain conditions.”
Acupuncture is worth a try for chronic pain.
Standard treatments like ice and heat, anti-inflammatory medications, physical therapy, and appropriate exercises can often ease the pain. But when they don’t, acupuncture is an option with a good track record that’s worth considering.
How does it work?
Acupuncturists insert hair-thin needles into the skin at specific points around the body. It is virtually painless when done by an experienced practitioner. Inserting the needles is thought to correct imbalances in the flow of energy in the body, called qi (pronounced “chee”).
Plan on weekly treatments until you start to see a benefit, then gradually lengthen the time until the next visit.