It is always a treat to have guest writers at Hearing Elmo. Today, we welcome Jackie Waters. Jackie is a mother, a homemaker, and a farmer who lives with her family on their farm in Oregon. She is passionate about providing a healthy and happy home for her family and aims to provide advice for others on how to do the same with her site Hyper-Tidy.com.
As a country, we are consuming more prescription opioids than ever before. We are the leading opioid-using nation in the world. The opioid epidemic has reached a point where doctors are beginning to totally rethink the way they prescribe, and this directly affects chronic pain patients. This is all with good reason, however. Using opioids to treat chronic pain can be problematic.
The difference between acute and chronic pain
“Acute pain, if you will, is a bit of a no-brainer. Pain is a message that damage is occurring to our body, and we need to take action. From a medical perspective the physiology of acute pain is well understood; it’s associated with tissue damage and resolution of the pain is associated with healing of the injury,” says physician Gary Kaplan.
Chronic pain is much more complicated. We are often unable to pinpoint the exact causes of chronic pain, as all the signs associated with acute pain have long since dissipated. Chronic pain can involve a multitude of complex issues, including mental ones, and can affect multiple areas and systems of the body. Long story short, it’s hard to pinpoint.
While using opioids to treat acute pain is simple and relatively harmless, the use of opioids to treat chronic pain is problematic. Long terms use of opioids can have devastating physical and mental health effects.
Chronic pain sufferers can develop a dependency to opioids
Even when taken as prescribed, opioids are highly habit-forming. Many chronic pain sufferers misuse the drugs, however, and take them in ways that are more harmful than their normal administration (snorting, more frequent use, higher dosage).
One of the main problems with taking opioids for a long period of time is that they become less effective over time. This forces people to continue upping their dose, which leads to addiction.
“A property of opioid drugs is their tendency, when used repeatedly over time, to induce tolerance. Tolerance occurs when the person no longer responds to the drug as strongly as he or she did at first, thus necessitating a higher dose to achieve the same effect,” says DrugAbuse.gov.
How to manage chronic pain without opioids
Your ultimate goal may be to eliminate the use of prescription drugs altogether, but it’s important to know that any reduction on the use of opioids is beneficial to your health. In order to do this, however, you have to have alternative methods to manage your chronic pain.
For temporary relief of chronic pain, many sufferers turn to acupuncture, massage, hydrotherapy, and chiropractic care. All of these can work, but all do not work for everyone. You must find the type of acute care that best helps your specific type of chronic pain.
For more sustained relief, some lifestyle changes must be considered. If you are overweight or obese, this is likely the leading exacerbating factor of your chronic pain. Losing weight reduces stress on the bones, joints, and muscles. Adopting a healthier diet is probably the best long-term strategy for managing chronic pain.
Apart from that, exercise is your next best option. You might be wary to dive into an exercise regimen for fear that it will make your chronic pain worse, but in fact it’s just the opposite. Check here for five great exercises for chronic pain.
Short-term use of opioids to treat pain is not necessarily a bad thing – in fact, it’s a widely accepted medical practice. Problems arise, however, when people start to rely on prescription drugs to help them cope with long-term pain.
Photo Credit: Pixabay.com
Hearing Elmo 