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Suffering from chronic pain? You’re certainly not alone. With over 3.6 million Australians living with chronic pain, it remains difficult to first understand then navigate the illness.
By definition, chronic pain is persistent pain that’s ongoing despite treatment. It’s a condition of the nervous system – usually, when we experience pain it’s our nervous system’s way of signalling something’s wrong while acting as a short-service protection. Yet, when it’s not relieved for at least three months or more, it moves into a new territory labelled as ‘chronic pain’ that serves no benefit to the sufferer other than negatively impacting various aspects of wellbeing, long beyond the physical.
Types of Chronic Pain
While there are hundreds of conditions that are labelled as chronic pain, there are three key types – Nociceptive, Nociplastic, and Neuropathic.Nociceptive – based on damaged tissue with nerve endings highly sensitive. Conditions include a range of arthritis conditions and pelvic pain.
Nociplastic – is based on pain that comes from the above conditions but with no evidence of tissue damage. This pain usually suggests changes in how the immune and nervous systems function.
Neuropathic – this is based on pain associated with injury or disease, such as sciatica, shingles and diabetic neuropathy.
Managing Chronic Pain
No matter how your pain can be defined or grouped, it’s managing the illness that’s most difficult to navigate. While there are a number of traditional treatments, medicines, injections and lifestyle changes that can be of use, it’s cannabis-based and alternative therapies that are significantly changing the lives of pain sufferers. In 2015 a study of 6,462 participants used cannabis and cannabinoid drugs to treat pain. The conclusion stated “there was moderate-quality evidence to support the use of cannabinoids for the treatment of chronic pain”.
A Chronic Pain Management Plan is also an integral part of the treatment process. This means creating an open and trusting dialogue with your doctor, educating yourself and those around you, recording and tracking pain and recognising and treating symptoms and issues originating from the illness (such as depression).
Treatment options
Further to this, many chronic illness sufferers take part in the following treatments and therapies, too –
Acupuncture
Massage
Physiotherapy
Yoga
Meditation
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
So, where do you start? By speaking with a doctor and discovering what works for you as chronic pain is a personal journey.
