What is Chronic Pain?

Chronic pain and inflammation are fundamental factors in various disease processes, particularly concerning pain management. Inflammation serves as a protective mechanism, but prolonged presence beyond the healing phase results in scar tissue and persistent inflammation. This congestion perpetuates pain and prevents the body from returning to a state of wellness. Resolving inflammation is crucial for chronic pain sufferers to reduce reliance on pain medications and facilitate healing.

How is chronic pain diagnosed?

Pain manifests in various forms and locations, requiring a comprehensive evaluation to address its root cause effectively. Chronic pain can present as sharp or dull sensations in bones, nerves, or tissues, affecting areas like the pelvis, abdomen, back, or joints. Common symptoms include soreness upon waking, tight muscles, headaches, joint popping, limited flexibility, backaches, and numbness, often stemming from inflammation and reduced circulation. Long-standing inflammation leads to scar tissue and adhesions, hindering proper circulation and exacerbating pain.

Natural Chronic Pain Relief Options:

The most humane thing Dr. Skip, O.M.D., can do for you in these instances is to recommend therapies and natural options to soothe inflammation, increase the circulation in your body and promote healing. Please remember never to stop any medications prescribed by your doctors. Dr. Skip is happy to coordinate care with your other providers and he is trained in both Western and Eastern modalities to help guide you in all of the options available to you. Acupuncture & Oriental Medicine, via the use of TCM Herbal Rx, have a tremendous success rate with all kinds of pain whether shooting, stabbing, burning or other.

If you are experiencing severe, complex, and progressive chronic pain due to an advanced disease process, then Functional Medicine may be an option to consider.  By identifying areas out of homeostasis, we can repair your foundation. For example, healing the gut, reducing inflammation, and boosting the immune system through this methodology can offer significant long-term health benefits and chronic pain relief.

Fatigue, hypertension, anxiety, anger, frustration, difficulty concentrating, insomnia and depression are also commonplace among people suffering in pain. This can be worse depending on the quantities of opioid based prescription meds needed to calm pain receptors. We make every effort to address these circumstances as aggressively as the pain itself.

Please remember while medications can be effective in controlling pain they do nothing to address any underlying issues such as the inflammation that could be perpetuating your problem and keeping you from healing. Please don’t forget the worst side effect is the very high addictive and abuse potential of these meds. These factors make them extremely unfriendly for anyone to use more than a few days or weeks as a stop gap.

Natural methods such as acupressure, acupuncture, chiropractic, physical therapy, massage and other manual therapies are by far and away much more beneficial to increasing circulation to the joints and muscles keeping them supple, lubricated and flexible. They just take time, tenacity, and consistency. Please don’t give up.

Inactivity for prolonged periods drastically increases lactic acid buildup, congested circulation and blocked lymphatic fluid, all contributing to increased incidences of pain and stagnation in the body. After a catastrophic diagnosis like cancer or after a major surgery, we tend towards laxity and instead of pursuing aggressive methods to facilitate the healing process. When the pain gets really bad, we don’t get the right kind of help to keep the inflammation under control which can also keep our joints and muscles mobile and working.

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