Chronic Pain is an illness that can seriously affect the growth and normal function of a person. Albeit natural and quite needed, nobody really wants to feel pain for even an instant. Imagine feeling it all the time for an extended period of time!
Why Do We Feel Pain?
Pain is not really “felt” in the body part concerned. It is a complex system of signals from the body’s nerves to the brain and is quite needed by the body. Often, it is used by the body to alert the body that something is mildly or horribly wrong, and the uncomfortable feeling forces the organism to take action and solve the problem.
Pain is a very good defensive tool that the body uses to protect ultra-sensitive body parts from serious injury. Naturally, certain external body parts that are more sensitive to blunt or piercing trauma have more pain receptors, such as the eyes or the genitals. If we didn’t feel any pain at all, we wouldn’t notice that a body part of ours was burning or getting crushed until we realized that we lost it!
What About Chronic Pain?
Chronic Pain is a different case. Usually, certain conditions cause the body to emit pain signals to the brain regarding certain problems, such as back problems and such. Sometimes, even when the problem has been corrected, the person continues to feel pain at the area concerned. This pain is no longer needed and is considered to be an ailment.
Pain Psychologists
After a thorough evaluation of the case of chronic pain, a doctor may recommend a good pain psychologist. If this happens to you, you must remember that it does not mean, in any way, that you are crazy, faking your pain, or overstating the pain. It is important to note that great mental conditioning and pain management skills are needed to combat the adverse effects of chronic pain on the ability to do things such as school or work.
Treatments
There are many treatments to chronic pain. One type of chronic pain treatment is the attempt to “distract” the mind by feeding some other sensation so that the feeling of pain may be lessened. The most popular products available in the market that can be used as examples of this are cooling agents and capsaicin. Cooling agents and capsaicin attempt to give the body sensations of extreme cold or extreme heat respectively, to “distract” the mind and minimize the sensation of pain. However, this solution is only temporary.
Another type of chronic pain treatment is the attempt the pain receptors which are responsible for sending pain signals, either by using electrical equipment installed in the spinal cord (which functions almost like an artificial pacemaker for the heart) which blocks out electrical signals to the brain, or by using drugs that have chemicals which effectively block the chemical signals that are associated to pain. However, pain relievers are increasingly becoming infamous for being addictive when taken in large doses.
Herbal medicines and alternative methods of solving pain problems are also increasingly becoming famous, although most of them are not yet scientifically backed. Currently, more research is being poured in the attempt of beating the pain.
