If you have chronic pain, even the most mundane tasks can become a hassle. In addition to the discomfort, you have to deal with the knowledge that even if you get the pain to subside, it’s only a matter of time before it returns. Learn more about chronic pain and see if a visit with our interventional pain management physician would be beneficial for you or a loved one:
What is meant by chronic pain?
Chronic pain exists when a person’s injured body part hurts for extended periods of time. It could be weeks, months, or years. It could also be a pain that subsides and reoccurs despite treatment and the passage of time.
Medical providers will officially diagnose it as chronic pain if it lasts for longer than six months. Some people only experience mild pain, while others feel excruciating or debilitating pain that interferes with their activities of daily living.
Chronic Pain Causes
Often, chronic pain is caused by a particular injury or trauma. The most common causes of chronic pain include:
- Falls
- Hard blows
- Car accidents
However, certain underlying health conditions may also result in this type of discomfort.
Conditions That Cause Chronic Pain
Some of the most common conditions that cause chronic pain include:
- Cancer
- Lupus
- Arthritis
- Nerve damage
- Migraines
- Multiple sclerosis
- Fibromyalgia
Chronic Pain Symptoms
A person suffering from chronic pain feels a myriad of symptoms, such as:
- Stiffness
- Soreness
- Pain that won’t subside
- Burning sensation
In addition to pain and discomfort in a specific body part, chronic pain affects other areas of a person’s life. As a result, the patient often experiences the following symptoms:
- Irritability
- Poor sleep patterns
- Anxiety
- Loss of interest in activities the person used to enjoy
- Exhaustion
- Becoming prone to frequent additional illnesses
Diagnosing Chronic Pain
It’s difficult to diagnose chronic pain from the outset since it could be the result of so many different conditions. In addition, how pain feels is very subjective. To help them determine a person’s discomfort, physicians often try to gauge the severity of the pain by asking the patient to rate the level of pain on a scale from 1 to 10.
Your pain management doctor may also ask you to keep a pain journal to see if there are certain triggers you haven’t previously noticed or if the pain occurs most frequently during specific times of the day.
Other methods used to diagnose chronic pain include:
- Bloodwork
- Testing a person’s range of motion on different joints
- Nerve Conduction Velocity Test
- Electromyography
- Psychological Evaluations (due to the fact that there’s a link between depression and chronic pain)
Chronic Pain Treatment
Treatment depends on the cause of the pain. Medications, acupuncture, and electrical stimulation have provided relief to some patients. However, for people where conservative treatment hasn’t provided relief, surgery may be an option if the source of the chronic pain was a trauma that resulted in an injury that didn’t heal properly.
Risk Factors for Chronic Pain
The most common risk factor is experiencing trauma. However, the following are also common risk factors for developing chronic pain:
- Having undergone surgery
- Being overweight or obese
- Being female
- Having an underlying illness
Request an Appointment at The Orthopedic Clinic Today
At The Orthopedic Clinic, we want you to live your life in full motion. If you’re suffering from chronic pain, let us help you get back to doing the things you love by visiting our interventional pain management physician.
Call us at (386) 255-4596 to schedule an appointment.