Living with chronic pain is so difficult and it can really affect your quality of life. Things that most people take for granted can be a real struggle when you’re constantly in pain and people that suffer from chronic pain often feel that they aren’t able to live life to the fullest.
If you want to live a fulfilling life, you need to find ways to manage that pain. The most obvious way to do that is to take painkillers but that doesn’t work for a lot of people. If you’re taking strong painkillers, you will often get side effects like drowsiness and there are concerns about becoming too reliant on the medication. So it’s often better to find other ways to manage your pain. If you’re living with chronic pain and you don’t like the idea of taking strong painkillers, here are some of the best alternatives.
Talking Therapy
A lot of people don’t realize that pain can be mental as well as physical. While the pain itself is physical and you can’t get rid of the symptoms through talking therapy, studies show that it could be useful for people that feel that their life is governed by that pain. New forms of cognitive behavioral therapy can help you to learn coping mechanisms and techniques that equip you to deal with the pain a lot better and stop it from having such a big impact on your life. It doesn’t necessarily work for everybody but it’s worth looking into if you are really struggling.
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Marijuana
This is a fairly controversial treatment but more research is going into it and a lot of people find that it is effective for relieving pain. One issue that people have is that they don’t like the idea of smoking because it’s bad for your health but there are alternatives. For example, Daniel Fung of CT has worked on developing new techniques for vaporizing marijuana instead of smoking and you can also get it in edible form. This isn’t an option for everybody and some people have moral concerns, however, if you are having real difficulty managing your pain effectively then it might be worth a try.
Microcurrent Treatments
Microcurrent treatments work by passing a small electrical current through the affected area in order to relieve pain. It might sound a bit scary but it is actually a very effective method of relieving pain in a lot of cases. You can get some great kits like the Microtherapypro which comes with a few pads and a battery pack. You simply attach the pads to an area where you feel pain and switch it on and you should feel some relief. This is a particularly good treatment if you have trouble sleeping due to your pain because you can put it on before going to bed and hopefully get enough relief to get a good night’s sleep.
You should always seek the advice of your doctor before trying any of these alternative pain relief methods but you may find that they are more effective than medication and don’t come with the same side effects.