“Bottom line, if you're experiencing pain that is significant enough to limit your quality of life, inhibit daily function, or even impair your sleep, we recommend speaking with somebody about it.” Headache or chest pain could be indicative of something life-threatening.
Pain will slow you down both physically and mentally, restricting your ability to focus on tasks or being creative, especially if you work in a mentally taxing environment. Stress and anxiety can take place due to the inability to feel relief.
Tips on coping with chronic pain
Eating well, getting plenty of sleep and engaging in approved physical activity are all positive ways for you to handle your stress and pain. Talk to yourself constructively. Positive thinking is a powerful tool.
Through regular mindfulness practices, you can learn to reduce stress (breaking the stress and pain cycle), increase emotional control and relieve chronic pain symptoms, among many other benefits. Visualization through mindfulness can play a part in helping to retrain your brain, just as with GMI.
Positive self-talk before you feel pain again
I'll make plans to control it”. “I'm not hurting right now. By thinking of other things I can make this good feeling last longer. I'll make the pain less severe when it comes.”
Regardless of its source, chronic pain can disrupt nearly all aspects of someone's life – beyond physical pain, it can impede their ability to work and participate in social and other activities like they used to, impact their relationships and cause feelings of isolation, frustration and anxiety.
Graded Motor Imagery (GMI) is a technique that can relieve chronic pain. GMI rewires the brain: the goal of GMI is to retrain your brain to have an accurate pain response again.
People living with chronic pain are at heightened risk for mental health problems, including depression, anxiety, and substance use disorders. Chronic pain can affect sleep, increase stress levels and contribute to depression. An estimated 35% to 45% of people with chronic pain experience depression.
Thought patterns can become negative, low and full of frustration. Pain can take over, disrupting sleep, making tempers short and memory and concentration poor. Such feelings can also affect peoples' ability to cope with pain and even the levels of pain experienced (see also 'Sleep, stress and environmental factors').
Because of the complex relationship between the brain, the nervous system and the body's hormones, chronic pain requires a multidisciplinary treatment approach. It's not like having infection, where you take antibiotics and it's gone. Chronic pain is complex and there isn't one treatment or one pill that will cure it.
Chronic pain can affect almost all parts of your life. Your sleep, mood, activity, and energy level can all be disrupted by pain. Being tired, depressed, and out of shape can make the pain worse and harder to cope with.
Research published last month in the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report estimated that more than 51 million people – more than 20% of US adults – have chronic pain and 17 million – almost 7% of adults – have high-impact chronic pain.
Not only is BPD one of the most painful mental illnesses, but it's also intensified by stigma and being misunderstood by others. Fortunately, borderline personality disorder is a treatable condition, and the pain doesn't have to be endless.
feel isolated — disinterested in the company of family and friends, or withdrawing from usual daily activities. feel overwhelmed — unable to concentrate or make decisions. be moody — feeling low or depression; feeling burnt out; emotional outbursts of uncontrollable anger, fear, helplessness or crying.
Endorphins are released by the hypothalamus and pituitary gland in response to pain or stress, this group of peptide hormones both relieves pain and creates a general feeling of well-being. The name of these hormones comes from the term "endogenous morphine." "Endogenous" because they're produced in our bodies.
The Pain – Fatigue Cycle
When you live with chronic pain, you are exhausted before you even start your day. In addition, pain makes it hard to sleep and you wake up with increased pain. Poor sleep causes an increase in inflammation that makes your pain worse and then fatigue follows.
Pain makes us turn inward
These inward-turning feelings can increase social isolation and loneliness. Many people who suffer from chronic pain find it very difficult to explain their feelings to those who do not suffer and may shut down even further. It's a vicious cycle.
A 55-year-old male can expect 24.7 years of life, of which 17.3 are pain-free, 2.8 are with milder, and 4.5 are with severe pain. A similarly aged female has greater longevity—27.4 years—but extra years are lived with pain—3.1 with milder and 7.0 with severe pain.
Pain is said to be at level 9 when it is excruciating, prevents you speaking and may even make you moan or cry out. Level 10 pain is unbearable. You will be bedridden and possibly even delirious.
Acetaminophen is generally a safe option to try first for many types of pain, including chronic pain. Ask your health care provider for guidance about other medications to avoid while taking acetaminophen. Acetaminophen is not as effective as NSAIDs for the treatment of knee and hip pain related to osteoarthritis.