Pain Management - The Six Pain Points
Poor Sleep
Good quality sleep is essential for the body to heal. It allows the nervous system to rest and our immune system to repair at a cellular level. The problem is that pain prevents good sleep so creating a cycle of pain, illness and fatigue that requires more and more medications that come with their own side effects
Reduced Immunity
Managing pain uses up a lot of "resources" which can lead to nutrient depletion. For our immune system do function effectively, it needs these resources otherwise the door is left open for opportunistic viruses, bacteria and disease to take hold and cause havoc, unchecked by a fatigued immune system no longer capable of identifying and fighting pathogens and dysfunctional cell activity.
Surgical Intervention & Recovery
For certain chronic conditions such as arthritis, surgery is eventually needed for hips, shoulders or knees, or an injury or bowel disease may require surgery. Whilst surgical interventions often resolve the problem, they take a toll on our health and people often don't know or are not advised how best to manage their health post-surgery
Past & Current Medications
As mentioned above, medications can often further complicate symptoms as well as creating dependency. Pain killers can harm the liver and can cause drowsiness, weight gain, low libido, lack of joy, depression and anxiety. This compounds the emotional stress already being caused by pain, lack of sleep and hopelessness.
Anxiety & Depression
Pain is debilitating. It affects all areas of life, our ability to concentrate and function normally. This can affect our social life, work, family, self care and general ability to do day to day tasks leading to low self esteem, anxiety and depression an a loss of hope.
Qualitity of Life
Ultimately, chronic and acute pain affects quality o life in ways people who have not experienced it do not understand. But, it can be addressed and managed if not reduced or ideally, eliminated providing the cause is not structural (ie; requiring surgery). There is a great deal Naturopathic medicine can do to improve quality of life.