Managing Your Pain Without Drugs
No one wants to live their life with pain, especially if it’s severe or chronic pain. But no one wants to take a ton of medications, either, especially when they’re addictive painkillers or have bad side effects. Fortunately, there are ways of managing your pain without resorting to pills. These pain management techniques will help you live a life that is, if not completely pain-free, at least with as little pain as possible.
Exercise
To many, this sounds backwards—if you hurt, surely you don’t want to exercise and risk hurting yourself even more, right? Actually, the opposite is true. Depending on what’s causing your pain, sometimes strengthening your body or helping the muscles loosen up is the best option, and exercise is great for that. That’s not to say that you need to hit the gym, but sometimes, simply walking or doing some light exercising can truly help reduce your pain. While rest, especially right after an injury, is necessary, if you are inactive for too long, it can make the pain worse.
Physical Therapy
Physical therapy is often a special type of exercise that focuses on working certain muscles or parts of the body. Like exercise, it can help restore mobility and reduce or eliminate pain. Because physical therapy is done under the supervision of a healthcare professional, there’s little or not chance you’ll cause further damage. Often, patients begin with physical therapy before moving on to exercising on their own.
Massage and Chiropractic Care
Massage can help ease the pain in your muscles, and chiropractic care can help realign your spine, neck, and head to reduce inflammation and other issues. While you may need to seek out this type of care regularly, it’s often more effective than taking medication. Sometimes a single spinal realignment is all it takes.
Surgery
In severe cases, orthopedic surgery may be the best option for pain. While no one likes undergoing surgery, it can be the most beneficial option and may be the only way to truly live pain-free. Some procedures are now minimally-invasive, making them much better options.
Seek Professional Assistance
If you want to live your life without pain and medications, the experts here at Maximum Orthopedics can help. Contact us today to discuss options.
- Posted on: Sep 30 2019