Chronic Pain Management by Amberlea Physiotherapy
Chronic pain is NOT just your imagination. And no, you’re NOT exaggerating. Please don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
Nobody is immune to occasional aches and pains. The odd headache here, a tweaked muscle there, sore spots here, belly aches there. In fact, pain is an important reaction of the nervous system: it helps alert you to possible injury, illness, or potential danger (think touching your finger to scalding water – pain allows you to immediately withdraw your hand before you get seriously burned). Furthermore, most pain will disappear quite quickly as an injury or illness heals or, indeed, the second you remove yourself from the source of the pain.
Chronic pain is different to this ‘typical’ pain. Defined as pain that lasts at least 12 weeks, chronic pain can persist for months. Years even. This persistent pain may start with a minor injury or illness, but it becomes ‘chronic’ when the pain does not disappear once the injury or illness has resolved. It is pain which may:
- Feel sharp or dull;
- Cause burning or aching sensations;
- Be steady or intermittent;
- Come and go without any apparent reason;
- Occur in nearly any part of your body, and it can feel different in each affected area.
Likely caused by a rewiring of the nervous system, with chronic pain your body continues to send pain signals to your brain, even after the initial cause of the pain has disappeared. The result is that chronic pain can not only limit your mobility, it can reduce your flexibility, strength, and endurance.
The bottom line is this: chronic pain can make normal life, and getting through daily tasks and activities, increasingly difficult. Unbearable even. Simple things like touching the skin, stretching, or moving the muscles for an action as routine as walking, become excruciatingly painful. More than that, living with constant, chronic pain affects more than just your physical health. Untreated, pervasive pain will affect your sleep, mood, energy and overall mental well-being.
Chronic pain is real, and it can be completely debilitating.
But there is good news.
- You are not alone: according to the American Academy of Pain Medicine, more than 1.5 billion people around the world have chronic pain, and 15% of Canadians suffer from chronic pain syndrome. With this number of sufferers, research into chronic pain will only grow, and treatment options are only going to get more and better. Which brings us to, good news point number 2…
- You can already get real, consequential help, courtesy of physiotherapy. Physiotherapy continues to show major growth and successes in giving chronic pain sufferers significant relief along with ways to effectively manage chronic pain on an ongoing basis.
Common Types and Causes of Chronic Pain
Some of the most common types of reported chronic pain include, but are not limited to:
- Headaches
- Post-surgical pain
- Post-trauma pain
- Lower back pain
- Cancer pain
- Arthritis pain
- Neurogenic pain (pain caused by nerve damage)
- Psychogenic pain (pain that isn’t caused by disease, injury, or nerve damage)
While chronic pain is often caused by an obvious initial injury or illness – such as a strained back or neck in the case of injury, or cancer in the case of illness – it can also result from an underlying health condition. The following conditions, for example, are frequently accompanied by reports of chronic pain:
- Chronic fatigue syndrome – extreme exhaustion often accompanied by pain
- Endometriosis – a painful disorder that occurs when the uterine lining grows outside of the uterus
- Fibromyalgia – widespread pain in the bones and muscles
- Inflammatory bowel diseases – a variety of bowel and intestinal conditions that cause painful, chronic inflammation in the digestive tract
- Interstitial cystitis – a chronic disorder marked by bladder pressure and pain
Whatever your chronic pain, wherever you’re feeling it, and whatever it stems from, know this: it’s not imagined. You’re not being ‘soft’ or ‘difficult’. You don’t need to just live with it. We can help you.
How Physiotherapy Can Help with Your Chronic Pain
Physiotherapy may not be the first port of call or line of treatment that you think of when it comes to getting help for your chronic pain. But a personalized chronic pain treatment and management plan from a qualified physiotherapist might just offer you the first real relief you’ve had from your suffering.
At Amberlea Physiotherapy, we will work with you to create a customized treatment plan designed to reduce pain, boost mobility, and help you return to your daily life with as little, if any, of the discomfort you’ve come to expect from your daily existence.
Given the nature of chronic pain – which can strike anywhere in your body, and show its ugly head in so many different painful ways – our approach to managing your chronic pain is similarly multi-faceted and multi-disciplinary. By using various active therapy and sensory system pain management techniques, we are able to achieve the most substantial amount of pain relief. Some of the ways we do this is by:
- Assessing how the pain affects your ability to move and helping you find ways to move without pain, and without causing new and further damage to your body;
- Developing a safe exercise and activity program that will gradually rewire your nervous system and thus mitigate or abolish the pain;
- Providing relaxation techniques and exercises that can help reduce muscle tension and any associated muscular pain, as well as calm the nervous system;
- Helping you design your own daily exercise and lifestyle plan to take care of your body with chronic pain management top of mind;
- Utilizing a team approach towards therapy by using various practitioners, such as physiotherapists, chiropractors, massage therapists, acupuncturists, etc., as best fits your personal experience of chronic pain. We are also fully committed to working with your other healthcare providers to see if there may be other specific treatments that will help.
Our ultimate goal is to help you permanently relieve your pain, or help you develop an ongoing, easy-to-stick-to, self-management strategy that enables you to once again enjoy a full life.
Are you suffering from chronic pain?
Let us help you take control of your chronic pain and get your life back! At Amberlea Physiotherapy in Pickering, our team of physiotherapists, RMTs, acupuncturists, and other health providers can help you manage your pain. Call our experts at (905) 492-5588 to arrange your Free 15-Minute Consultation to learn how our individual health care plans can work for you. You can also contact us online with any questions you have about pain management.
Book your FREE 15-minute consultation with our Pickering Physiotherapists now!
We're Here To Help You
Our Commitment
We are committed to providing the highest quality patient care. We are here to help you achieve your goals by assisting you every step of the way. Let us help you get to where you want to be!
Our Physio Team
Our knowledgeable staff can assist you every step of the way. We believe that knowledge is power to your healing and recovery, and we strive to help you understand what your condition is.
Booking Process
We provide a free 15-minute consultation to aid you in determining the best course of action. Every type of condition is importation to us! Here at Amberlea, we provide same or next day bookings.