Chronic Pain

 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-61309962

26% of adults in the UK live with chronic pain - tick

24% of those take opiods - tick

I have had a lifetime of chronic pain. I have tried every prescription medication from opiods down. I have tried almost every alternative therapy.

I have had doctors who had no idea how to treat me & told me that "I was creating my own pain" and doctors who were patient, sympathetic, open minded & honest. Chronic pain is very difficult to treat. It's only relatively recently that conditions like Fibromyalgia & CFS have become accepted as mainstream. 

https://cks.nice.org.uk/topics/chronic-pain/

Thank goodness we are starting to get more research into pain, it's causes & treatment. 

My experience leads me to think that the causes of chronic pain are multi factorial:-

• Environment - I think we live in a toxic world. Air quality is poor. Agribusiness & industry pollute our rivers & waterways. We eat too much processed food. What we allow into our bodies is not good for them.
• Exercise - Most of us don't do enough. Use it or loose it. Around 1 in 3 (34%) of men and 1 in 2 (42%) of women are not active enough for good health.
• Serotonin carries messages between nerve cells in the brain and throughout your body. It plays a key role in such body functions as mood, sleep, digestion, nausea, wound healing, bone health, blood clotting and sexual desire. Lack of Seratonin is caused by:-
  
  • age-related health and brain changes
  • a poor diet
  • chronic stress
  • a lack of exposure to natural light
  • inadequate exercise levels
• Sleep - 36% of UK adults struggle to get to sleep at least on a weekly basis. Almost 1 in 5 have trouble falling asleep every single night. Nearly half of the UK have trouble falling asleep at least once a month.  https://www.formulatehealth.com/blog/insomnia-statistics-uk-how-many-people-have-sleep-problems. Sleep deprivation & fatige is often caused by chronic pain.
  
• Neurological pain - Fibromyalgia is a chronic and widespread musculoskeletal pain and fatigue disorder. It is a long-term, body-wide pain in muscles, ligaments and tendons – the soft fibrous tissues in the body.It is a disorder of the central nervous system. A growing amount of evidence suggests that the pain in Ostoarthritis also has a neuropathic component in some patients. It is often the result of nerve damage or a malfunctioning nervous system.

For sufferers of chronic pain there probably is no cure. But you can manage your life & pain. You need to take responsibility for your own body, treat your doctors as partners not Gods, be pro-active, pace yourself, use distraction technique....Above all enjoy the life you have.