Tag Archives: chronic pain

Breaking Emotional Barriers

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Quality of life is not strictly about pain itself. Instead, it is about how you react to your pain. You can expect pain to take an emotional toll: That is normal, maybe even inevitable. But people respond to pain differently, and research makes clear that some ways of responding lead to less pain and better outcomes than others.

To get an idea of how you are responding to pain, Michael R. Clark, M.D., director of the chronic pain treatment program at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine suggests you think about the goals you may have established for your life. “For people who are not in pain, this is relatively easy,” he says. “They are usually established in careers and relationships, and it is second nature when they wake up in the morning to know what they are striving for and where they are heading. People with chronic pain, on the other hand, often feel that life is passing them by. Their only goal is to get through the day. Often they wonder, ‘Is this all life can be?”

The answer, according to Clark: There is more. “You have opportunities for success and fulfillment, but if you are in chronic pain, you may need to think more assertively about what you need to achieve your goals.” These goals may be different now than they were before pain saddled you. But evaluating how to reach them is no different: Look objectively at your strengths and weaknesses (perhaps including personality, skills, and education), and try to identify activities or ambitions that match your capabilities. Sound like a familiar process? Then the next question becomes critical: What is holding you back?

For many people in chronic pain, the answer comes down to emotional barriers. These may include depression, anxiety, anger, or loss of self-esteem, along with issues these negative feelings become entangled with, such as weight gain and deteriorating relationships – all of which can make pain more difficult to deal with and quality of life more difficult to achieve.

If you or someone you know is suffering from chronic back pain or neck pain, spinal injury, pinched nerve, etc., do not hesitate to call the North Dallas Spine Center at (972) 916-9432 to receive the care you need.

North Dallas Spine Center – 972-916-9432
7708 San Jacinto Place, Suite 300, Plano, TX 75024

Coping With Pain

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Thomas Jefferson once wrote in a letter that “the art of life is the art of avoiding pain.” But when pain becomes unavoidable, what happens to the art of life? Jefferson may not have addressed the point, but millions of people in chronic pain deal with this question day after day.

Doctors are starting to deal with the question as well. Once attuned mainly to medical outcomes, pain specialist (and other physicians) increasingly recognize that the well-being of people with chronic conditions hinges on far more than physical problems or discomfort.

Take the case of arthritis sufferers. In a recent survey of more than 32,000 adults, those with arthritis reported being in poor-to-fair health three times more often than other people did. Maybe that is not surprising when you are talking about the top cause of disability in the United States. But the survey went beyond how arthritis affected people physically to ask how they felt mentally and how often their condition prevented them from participating in regular activities-in short, how well they were coping and getting along. In both cases, people who had arthritis again suffered more than people who did not.

Such findings point to the importance of what is come to be called health-related quality of life. It is a concept that considers not only the medical measures of your condition-whether you give your pain a 3 or a 7, for example, or how far you can bend your knee-but emotional, social, and other subjective aspects of life as well. It may seem abundantly self-evident that quality of life erodes when you are in constant discomfort. But in many cases, pain chips away so slowly at function, feelings, and favorite activities that patients are not aware of how-or how much-life has changed. For example, if you have given up tennis because of knee pain, it may not strike you that other enjoyable activities that once seemed important, such as attending matches as a spectator, have also fallen by the wayside.

“Nobody suffering from chronic pain is going to be happy and satisfied about that,” says Michael R. Clark, M.D., director of the chronic pain treatment program at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine’s department of psychiatry and behavioral medicine. “The question is what you want out of life and what you can change to make your quality of life better.”

If you or someone you know is suffering from chronic back or neck pain, spinal injury, pinched nerve, etc., do not hesitate to call the North Dallas Spine Center at (972) 916-9432 to receive the care you need.

North Dallas Spine Center – 972-916-9432
7708 San Jacinto Place, Suite 300, Plano, TX 75024