What is Pain Management?

Pain is the most common symptom of potentially thousands of diseases, disorders, injuries, and conditions you can experience in your lifetime. Pain management specialists help you regulate pain with exercises, therapy, medications, and procedures.

What are the types of pain?

Different types of pain result from an accident or disease. Some pain results from treatments and other pain have no known cause.

Acute: It often results from an injury and is a sharp pain. It gets better when providers treat the injury or disease that is causing the pain. This type of pain can result from muscle spasms, bone fractures, burn or other kinds of accidents.

Chronic: This type of pain can result from an untreated disease or injury. It can also result from conditions like fibromyalgia or nerve damage, and arthritis. Low back pain is different type of chronic pain.

Nociceptive:  Nerve cell endings send pain signals to your brain when you have an injury. This type of pain happens when you break a bump or bone, in your head or pull a muscle.

Neuropathic:  Neuropathic pain happens when nerves fire pain signals to the brain by mistake. Problems related to the nervous system cause neuropathic pain.

Pain management strategies

Generally, doctors suggest that a person’s emotional wellbeing can impact the experience of pain. Some key pain management strategies are pain medicines, physical therapies (heat or cold packs, massage, hydrotherapy, and exercise), mind and body techniques (acupuncture), and psychological therapies (cognitive behavioral therapy, relaxation techniques).

What are the different types of pain management?

There are several ways to manage different types of pain in our body. You can have a team of pain management experts who work together to help you manage long-term or severe pain. These specialists can work in a field of medicine called algiatry. They may recommend one approach or a combination of several pain management techniques.

Therapy and Counseling: Cognitive behavioral therapy can help you to manage chronic pain by changing how your mind reacts to physical discomfort. This chronic pain can also lead to anxiety and depression. Your provider may recommend other types of meditation, counseling, or therapy to help you manage these emotions.

At-home remedies: 

You may be able to relieve pain from injuries to muscles, soft tissues, and bones at home. If you are resting then apply ice or a cold compress every 20 minutes or so to reduce swelling and pain.

Exercise: You can also consider Pilates, yoga, tai chi, swimming, or walking. These exercises are helpful in reducing chronic pain, improving posture and help your body work better overall. They help you stay balanced and also benefit your mental health.

Medications: Your provider may recommend prescription or over-the-counter medications to relieve discomfort, depending on the type of pain. Some of these pain-relieving drugs can be habit-forming. You may need antibiotics to treat muscle relaxers for spasms, an infection, or anti-inflammatory drugs to relieve swelling.

Injections and stimulations: Your provider may recommend transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation to relieve nerve pain. These steroid injections deliver pain relief medication directly to the painful area.