11 Tips for Living with Chronic Pain

On Friday we posted a blog about Paula Abdul’s battle with chronic pain. Today we want to share 11 tips for living with chronic pain.

If you have decided to try and live with your back pain, WedMD has posted some tips to help you through it.

1. Learn deep breathing or meditation to help with chronic pain.
Deep breathing and meditation are techniques that help your body relax, which eases pain. Tension and tightness seep from muscles as they receive a quiet message to relax.

2. Reduce stress in your life. Stress intensifies chronic pain.
Negative feelings like depression, anxiety, stress, and anger can increase the body’s sensitivity to pain. By learning to take control of stress, you may find some relief from chronic pain.

3. Boost chronic pain relief with the natural endorphins from exercise.
Endorphins are brain chemicals that help improve your mood while also blocking pain signals. Exercise has another pain-reducing effect — it strengthens muscles, helping prevent re-injury and further pain. Plus, exercise can help keep your weight down, reduce heart disease risk, and control blood sugar levels — especially important if you have diabetes.

4. Cut back on alcohol, which can worsen sleep problems.
Pain makes sleep difficult, and alcohol can make sleep problems worse. If you’re living with chronic pain, drinking less or no alcohol can improve your quality of life.

5. Join a support group. Meet others living with chronic pain.
When you’re with people who have chronic pain and understand what you’re going through, you feel less alone. You also benefit from their wisdom in coping with the pain.

6. Don’t smoke. It can worsen chronic pain.
Smoking can worsen painful circulation problems and increase risk of heart disease and cancer.

7. Track your pain level and activities every day.
To effectively treat your pain, your doctor needs to know how you’ve been feeling between visits. Keeping a log or journal of your daily “pain score” will help you track your pain. At the end of each day, note your pain level on the 1 to 10 pain scale. Also, note what activities you did that day. Take this log book to every doctor visit — to give your doctor a good understanding of how you’re living with chronic pain and your physical functioning level.

8. Learn biofeedback to decrease pain severity.
Through biofeedback, it’s possible to consciously control various body functions. It may sound like science fiction, but there is good evidence that biofeedback works — and that it’s not hard to master.

9. Get a massage for chronic pain relief.
Massage can help reduce stress and relieve tension — and is being used by people living with all sorts of chronic pain, including back and neck pain.

10. Eat a healthy diet if you’re living with chronic pain.
A well-balanced diet is important in many ways — aiding your digestive process, reducing heart disease risk, keeping weight under control, and improving blood sugar levels. To eat a low-fat, low-sodium diet, choose from these: fresh fruits and vegetables; cooked dried beans and peas; whole-grain breads and cereals; low-fat cheese, milk, and yogurt; and lean meats.

11. Find ways to distract yourself from pain so you enjoy life more.
When you focus on pain, it makes it worse rather than better. Instead, find something you like doing — an activity that keeps you busy and thinking about things besides your pain. You might not be able to avoid pain, but you can take control of your life.

11 Tips for Living with Chronic Pain via WebMD.com

Tags: Back Pain, Chronic Pain, Medical Questions, Medical Tips