Ever thought why you have Chronic Pain?
Pain can be useful, but not always.
Not all Pain is the same.
There are 2 kinds of pain.
Acute Pain and Chronic Pain.
While both are unplesant sensations, the similarity ends there.
Acute Pain occurs when there is injury or ongoing damage.
Pain can be very useful for survival. It’s a protective mechanism that alerts us of actual or potential harm such as when you are about to step onto something sharp, or get burned with something hot. This is also the kind of pain experienced after having surgery or an operation, cutting or bruising yourself, or having a sprain or a broken bone.
Acute pain will get better once the injury has healed, sometimes it can disappear in a few hours or days, other times it can take a few weeks. Pain killing medicines like paracetamol, ibuprofen or morphine work very well for acute pain.
Healthcare professionals including your GP’s, other specialists and physiotherapists have a good understanding of how to treat this pain.
Chronic Pain doesn’t go away even after the injury has healed. It’s stuck!
Things start to get complicated! Pain killers no longer work, the healthcare professionals may say different things about what is causing the pain, and sometimes all the tests and scans come back as normal. It’s all very confusing!
Things don’t end there…
As chronic pain becomes more and more unpredictable it can affect many things. Often people with chronic pain report feeling constantly tired, have disrupted sleep patterns, poor concentration and feel frustrated, anxious and fearful about their pain. It makes them feel like that something is being missed about their condition, or their condition is becoming incurable. Most of all, it stops them from doing the things they enjoy in their life.
Other people tell us some healthcare professionals seem to suggest they are imagining their pain, and it’s all in their head! They are told to ‘live with their pain’. All this uncertainty leads to more anxiety, worry and sleep disruption, and most of all an overwhelming feeling of missing the life they used to have without chronic pain.