Traditional chronic pain management usually consists of
medication. This medication often creates an additional burden on
the body and may not be an option for some people. It can also be quite
costly.
Below you'll find ten of the most common techniques I use on a daily
basis for living with my pain and illness. To learn more
about my journey with chronic illness and pain you may want to take a
look at my book Finding Life Fulfillment when Living with Chronic
Illness.
Try some of these holistic approaches for your chronic pain management
that are healthy for your body and cost you absolutely nothing.
These techniques are helpful for chronic pain such as headaches,
migraines, myofacial pain, muscular and connective tissue pain, organ
pain and just pain in general.
1. Go Into Your Pain
Allow your pain to consume you and become one with it. Don’t
resist it. Just let it exist in its fullest extent. Welcome
it and embrace it. When you resist pain it becomes stagnant, if
you go into it, it will flow through you. This doesn’t eliminate
the pain, but releases the power it has over you and changes it form,
therefore allowing you to function within it. This is one of the
most beneficial chronic pain management tips I can share with you.
2. Breathe deep into the
pain.
Another priceless technique for chronic pain management.
Close your eyes and take a deep breath in through your nose with your
mouth shut. The abdomen should distend on inhale, not your chest,
and then exhale very slowly while focusing your mind and your breath
into the area of pain. In your minds eye direct your breath into
the pain. Visualize the breath flowing into the painful area and
melting it away. Do this repeatedly until you feel it begin to
release and then move to another pain area and begin again. It
may take several breaths to release it. It may also take a lot of
practice to train your mind to focus into the pain. I find this
exercise more effective when I can close my eyes, but it is also
helpful when your driving or in public places by doing the breathing
without closing the eyes.
3. Stretch your face and
jaw
Open your mouth as wide as it will go and then gently push it to go a
little wider. When you feel the muscles in your jaw and
head pulling and tingling then relax it. This will probably
be excruciating and bring tears in your eyes, but it will release the
pain and you will have a lot of relief afterwards. Then pull your
lips forward over your teeth and stretch the front face muscles.
Experiment a bit, wherever you feel the pain and pull and stretch the
jaw in different directions until it hurts so bad you can’t stand it
and then relax it. After doing this several times then do the
breathing into exercise described above and breath into all the jaw
muscles and connective tissue in shoulders and collar bone.
4. Self Massage and apply
pressure to trigger points
Gently massage the area with pain.
Use your 2nd and 3rd fingers to rub softly in a circular motion. This
is also helpful on painful organs. Massage the trigger points on
collarbone, back of head or wherever they may be for you.
Sometimes it is more effective to use the thumb for deep penetration
into areas such as the collarbone. Gently press into the
trigger points until again it feels like you will go through the
ceiling and bring tears to your eyes and then release pressure.
Do this several times to each painful or tender area. Sometimes
just laying the hands on the painful area can give it some
relief. After applying pressure to painful areas and releasing
then do the breathing into technique described above.
5. Take a Hot Shower
Stand in the shower with the water as hot as you can tolerate and let
it flow gently over the painful areas. Also shut the bathroom
door and all windows so the heat can build up in the room. It is
also helpful to apply pressure to trigger points, do gentle massage and
do the breathing into exercise while you’re in the shower.
6. Have an Orgasm or Two
An orgasm can bring about incredible relief to a severe headache,
generalized muscular pain, and even a migraine. If you have one
at the beginning of your migraine it is possible at times to stop it
from progressing. Of course when you are in pain you may not feel
like having sex, and you certainly don’t want to get into the habit of
using sex as a pain reliever, but using it therapeutically now and then
is very beneficial. If you can muster up the desire and
your partner is willing then the act of sex itself, if you allow
yourself to become immersed in it, can provide great relief by drawing
your attention away from your pain. When you have an orgasm it
has a natural pain killing effect on the body. When sex is
not desired and to avoid using sex too often for relief, then
masturbation that ends with an orgasm will produce the exact same pain
killing effects. For women, getting a clit stimulator, which can
bring about orgasm quickly, is very useful. That way you don’t
have to spend much time at it. For men, well most men now how to
handle themselves to bring about an orgasm in a rather short amount of
time. A great pain management technique that's lots of fun too!
7. Walking
If you are capable of walking and if you enjoy it then walking briskly
for at least 20 minutes (35 minutes is better) can also have
pain-killing effects on the body. If you don’t walk and it is
something that is possible for you, then you might consider working on
building this habit into your daily routine.
8. Sleep or meditate
This chronic pain management technique is probably most useful with
milder forms of pain, although with some practice it can become
beneficial to more severe pain. Sometimes the pain may be
too great for this technique to work, because you may not be able to
achieve a sleep or relaxed state, but even a semi-sleep or
semi-meditative state can be useful too. Lie down, close your
eyes and do the deep breathing exercise to every part of your body
beginning with your head and work down to your toes. Then either
try to go to sleep or just meditate. When we sleep the body
repairs and heals itself. A short period of sleep can often give
miraculous amounts of pain relief. If sleep is not possible then
just continue the deep breathing and think relaxing
thoughts. Don’t allow yourself to think about what needs to
be done, your problems, or anything else. Focus completely on
your breathing. Repeating some form of mantra may be helpful to
keep the mind focused.
9. Nurture Your Soul
Feeding your soul has a positive effect on your overall well-being. If
your overall well-being is feeling better, then the impact of pain will
not be as powerful and disruptive. It will make you feel
more at peace with yourself and the world. Do daily activities
that are food for your soul, such as getting in touch with nature,
writing, reading, singing, a hot bath, special time with loved ones or
whatever it is that is nourishing for you. The things that make
you feel whole, alive and one with the universe (or God) is your soul
food.
10. Express Your Pain
Verbally
Most of us know that it is beneficial to express our emotional feelings
and detrimental to our well being to let them build up. This can
also apply to our physical pain. Physical pain and emotional pain
are intertwined on a deep level. If we are enduring physical pain
you can bet that there is some emotional pain brewing in the back
ground and vice versa. Therefore, expressing your physical pain
verbally can provide us with some relief. So let it out.
Tell someone understanding and compassionate how awful it is and what
it feels like. Vent, vent, vent. If you don’t want to
verbalize out loud, then try writing it down on paper without censoring
yourself. If you need someone to talk to who understands
completely you may find Cynthia's
holistic health phone counseling to
be helpful.
Sometimes you may need to do all the chronic pain management
suggestions above to get relief or you may only need to do one or
two. It varies from time to time. The degree of relief that
I can achieve with these techniques varies from time to time, but the
majority of the time I can get enough relief to function. At
times I can do all of the above suggestions and I can completely turn
around my pain including a migraine. At other times, I will only cut my
pain in half or almost eliminate it and then at other times the relief
may be minimal. It depends on factors such as what was the
trigger, how long did I wait before doing the technique, what cycle of
the month am I in and how intense the trigger was.
