How to Cope with Chronic Pain

By definition, chronic pain is pain that persists for at least six months or more. For whatever reason, pain signals fired by nerves are constantly firing. As where acute pain will eventually subside, chronic pain does not. For many people diagnosed with chronic pain the pain has lasted or will last for years. And the pain will continue to persist until some medical miracle can either better contain the pain or fix the underlying issue. For this article specifically, the term chronic pain means debilitating, life altering pain.

If you are one of the 100 million Americans living with chronic pain then there is a good chance you have either had or do have problems coping. I guarantee that you are not alone. Just type up chronic pain support groups on a search engine and you will not believe how many hits you get. This is because chronic pain has an absolute detrimental affect on your psychological well-being. The disorder has a negative impact on your relationships, family, friends, social life, job, self-esteem, and your health as well as numerous other aspects of your life. Chronic pain suffers are usually very limited in what they can do. Sometimes those limitations make us feel as if we are weak and make us wonder if we have a purpose in this life. We feel as if our body is a prison and our mind is the prisoner. We want to do what "normal" people do, just the simple things in life. I myself would love to be able to work 40 hours a week or more as a homicide detective. I would love to go sit through an entire movie at the theatre. I want to go dancing, jet skiing, ride amusement park rides, take long walks, sit on furniture instead of the floor, exercise regularly, ride bikes, take long car rides through the country, and I want to have children. Maybe one day with the help of a medical miracle I will be able to do some of the above activities. But until then I just have to cope.