Tips to Manage Chronic Pain

Hi friends, my name is Dr Umesh Deshmukh. I’m a consultant in anaesthesia and pain management. Today I’ll be speaking on chronic pain because this topic is very close to my heart. I also suffered from chronic pain.

Chronic pain is a condition shared by many of us including myself. It can be caused by joint disease, arthritis, migraine, fibromyalgia, bad back and cervical spondylitis, excessive weight gain. The important thing to note is that chronic pain whatever the cause, hangs on for weeks or months or even years and decades together. It wrecks your life and lifestyle, it changes you from inside. So as it is said that God helps only those who help themselves. So there are certain things that we must do to alleviate the pain apart from what a doctor can give to us.

• First is walking. Walking is one of the best things we can do to alleviate pain. You must start slowly with slow increments in your walking time every day.
• Acupuncture is one of the modalities of pain therapy that has been neglected over a long period of time. But acupuncture is very effective in chronic pain and it if possible consult a good acupuncturist to treat your chronic pain because acupuncture increases the natural pain killing hormones known as endorphins in your body.
• Other important thing is to get your mind off from whatever work etc. you do. You must take periodic breaks from your works. You could do something to distract yourself like reading a book or probably singing a song. Having a conversation with your friend something like that you can do, it takes your mind off from pain and distraction is the most important thing to treat chronic pain.
• Other important aspect is a change in diet and managing your weight. You must reduce your excess weight by performing certain diet changes in which the dietician can advise you what to do.

As far as treatment is concerned to consult a pain expert. There are pain specialists available in metros and big cities and big hospitals. Nowadays, there is even available on a part time basis. You can also consult them through Lybrate.

Some of these pain specialists like me, are also experts in interventions of various kinds especially in dealing with pain back or spine problems and joint problems. These interventions may constitute simple injections for diagnostic or therapeutic purposes. The pain controlling device in plantations in your spinal cord and also doing surgeries like spine surgeries joint replacements etc. These certain things can be treated by pain specialists and some of them can be treated only by surgeons but the pain specialists can advise you when to go in for a surgery.

So friends, if there is any way that I can help you as a pain specialist. I am available on Lybrate. You can text me or you can send an email to me or you can call me in person so I can devise a plan to help with your pain.