How I Deal With Chronic Pain

Who has dealt with pain?  I know I sure have.  I have dealt with many back pain issues usually coming from my sciatic nerve.  However, in the last year I have been dealing with lower back pain that is not from my sciatica.

I have always been someone who carries all my stress in my neck and shoulders.  Now all that tension is also in my mid-lower back.  I have experienced debilitating pain from this where I just can’t move.  All I want to do is stay in bed and even that can hurt to move from side to side.  Have any of you dealt with back pain like this?  If your answer is yes, then please read on!  If your answer is no, you should read on too because you might learn something new and you never know when pain is going to strike!

The way I have treated my pain is to go to the doctor.  That should be the right thing to do, right?  Sure, if you want conventional western medicine and essentially a band-aid on the pain (my opinion, of course).  A little off subject here to give you all some background, I was raised where I was always taken to the doctor for anything, you could call my mom a hypochondriac and germaphobe (totally different story for another time).  Needless to say, I was always at the pediatrician for one reason or another.  As I grew up and started to make my own choices, I too went to the doctor for almost any little thing, because that is what I learned.  Then, I went to college and chose the major, health and wellness.  I learned about so many different disciples of medicine and really started to appreciate alternative forms of medicine.  As my mom calls this “hocus pocus”.  I started studying these concepts more and more and realized how it is far better for your body then the pharmaceuticals that are out there.  I feel like every time I turn on the television there has been some new lawsuit filed about some drug.  I could go on and on about this, but I’ll save you from that.

Back to the pain or lack thereof.  I was the one to need a chiropractic adjustment and so going to chiropractors which did help but got expensive.  I was getting bi-monthly massages to help manage the pain, again expensive and lo and behold the traditional western medicine MD.  Aside from a decent recommendation for walking shoes for back pain, I bet you can guess what the doc gave me….  Muscle relaxers and vicodin.  I was high as kite, but all my pain was gone.  Well wait…. Until the drugs wore off, which was about an hour later and I was completely worthless while on them.  The doc gave me so many in my prescription, I felt like this was a recipe for addiction.  I thought there must be something different out there to help manage my pain in a less addictive and life stopping form.

I started doing more research on alternative medicine for my classes and found that with preventive measures you can be in control of your own health!  What a concept western medicine!  Let’s take care of ourselves to prevent illness rather than let’s eat whatever we want, don’t exercise, etc.  Please don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying don’t ever go to the doctor but if you just listened to your body and followed some preventive measures you might save yourself a trip and the cost.

Here are some tips that I use to help my chronic pain:

1.       Learn deep breathing or meditation to help with chronic pain.

This has really helped me, especially with the next tip.  This helps me relax and in turn helps reduce the stress in my life.

2. Reduce stress in your life. Stress intensifies chronic pain. (boy does it ever!)

3. Boost chronic pain relief with the natural endorphins from exercise.

This may difficult to do if you can barely move, but just getting your heart rate up helps the stress release and loosens up  those muscles.

4. Cut back on alcohol, which can worsen sleep problems.

5. Don’t smoke. It can worsen chronic pain.

6. Track your pain level and activities every day.

7. Get a massage for chronic pain relief.

Here at the Dragontree you can get an amazing massage with many treatment options to choose from.  (You should book  now)

8. Eat a healthy diet if you’re living with chronic pain.

This is so important!  People really underestimate what foods they eat can do.  They can either harm or heal. What do you  choose?

9. Find ways to distract yourself from pain so you enjoy life more.

I find that all of these have helped me and when all else fails, I found an amazing pain relief product that I use in a combination of the above preventive measures.  I turned to alternative medicine once again.  I found a pain relief patch called Imbue Body.  It comes in a 4″x6″ patch that is so effective.  If I can put one of these on right at the start of the tension and tightness in my back, it completely alleviates the pain.  I can feel it start working in as little as 5 minutes.  The pain relief lasts, well a long time.  My stepson jumped up on me to hold him, he is nearly 75lbs and I am only 115lbs, can you see where I am going here? The minute he jumped, I felt my back tweak in a way it wasn’t supposed to.  As soon as I got home, I put Imbue on that spot and went to bed.  I woke up the next morning and I had no pain, tightness, tenderness, and my back didn’t feel tweaked.  WOW!  This was amazing because before I went to bed I thought there had been some damage done.  Now I use Imbue for any type of pain.  It works great for any muscular pain, joint pain and even the girly pain once a month.  The best part of all you ask?  It is an all natural herbal patch; even the adhesive is pine resin.  I can treat my pain in confidence that I am not putting harmful toxins on or in my body and the best part, I am pain FREE! You ask where can I get this amazing Imbue Pain Relief Patch? You can HERE.

~Jennifer Buthmann, Marketing Director