Chronic pain has a unique way of beating down the human spirit that’s hard to explain to someone who hasn’t experienced it. What starts out as a minor nuisance can take over your life, and everything else becomes affected; your sleep, the house chores you are able to do, and so on. When basic care stops working, or never worked particularly well to begin with, it can feel like you’re endlessly cycling through brief periods of relief followed by the unwelcome return of pain.
Unfortunately, this is often the case because persistent pain needs something different than injury-based care. Although injury-based conditions respond well to basic care, some chronic conditions need more than just symptom management; they need care that recognizes and addresses the source of the problem instead.
Basic Pain Management Doesn’t Work for Chronic Conditions
Most people new to living with chronic pain usually begin their exploration of options with the usual treatment options: over-the-counter medications, rest, heat and ice therapy, and maybe even some simple exercises or stretches at home. These approaches to pain and injury management tend to work well to some extent for recent injuries and conditions that aren’t chronic in nature.
Chronic pain conditions are different, though. The source of persistent pain is usually something more complicated than an issue that will heal on its own. Common sources of persistent pain that we see every day within the chronic pain community typically include underlying structural issues, nerve involvement, or when compensation patterns develop after the body attempts to work around a condition that it thinks has already healed.
Take a herniated disc, for instance; it’s not just the local area of herniation that’s impacted. It can also be associated with patterns of tension in one or more related kinetic chains in the body and lead to further muscular tension patterns that only exacerbate the condition in an attempt to work around it.
Basic care methods typically don’t recognize this type of pattern, and instead focus on directly treating what is assumed to be the “problem area” in isolation, rather than the body as a whole. Pain medications do relieve symptoms temporarily when they are effective, but they aren’t going to fix any underlying structural issues; they aren’t meant to.
Traditional exercises or stretches are helpful for strengthening certain muscles, but they might not target (and therefore ignore) more general movement patterns or improper alignment and/or activation patterns that developed in response to that injury which are now contributing to the continued presence of pain.
Searching for an Effective Treatment? Think Advanced Approaches
So what can you do if your pain continues despite simple interventions or basic treatment protocols? In cases where basic treatment methods just don’t seem to cut it anymore, what can chronic pain patients turn towards? A range of advanced treatment options is available that persistently painful patients can try.
While common “advanced” approaches to treatment might include things like traditional chiropractic adjustments or acupuncture, several other methods have been found to have positive treatment outcomes amongst individuals whose pain doesn’t respond to basic care. Specialized techniques that provide Advanced Chiropractic Relief often focus on comprehensive spinal treatments rather than isolated adjustments, addressing multiple areas of dysfunction simultaneously.
For patients who might have developed chronic conditions as a result of working around another condition or injury, it’s also not uncommon to see advanced treatment methods involve spinal treatment as opposed to isolated regionally-targeted treatments. For those who are experiencing a pattern of persistent pain across their entire body or multiple pain regions, treatment might involve focusing on achieving whole-body alignment as well.
What Works: Non-Medication Approaches That Actually Deliver Results
What are some examples of advanced approaches we can look at? Here’s an overview:
- Spinal Decompression
Spinal decompression is one technique used for disc-related injuries which has been shown to be effective as an advanced treatment for chronic pain, whether performed with a machine or performed manually by a chiropractor. Spinal decompression works by addressing disc issues that could otherwise take a long time to heal on their own.
- Trigger Point Therapy and Movement Modification
Another common form of “new-age” therapy includes trigger-point massage combined with corrective movement training. Still another effective approach to treating chronic pain is working with a physical therapist who understands muscular activation patterns. Muscular activation patterns are often unintentionally developed as a means of working around another injury, increasing tension in the area where that other injury occurred; chronic pain patients tend to experience this pattern more than others due to the length of time they are forced to work around their initial source of pain.
Trigger point release often helps release this type of built-up muscular tension and then correcting these movements tends to alleviate this issue permanently.
- Dry Needling
Another example of an advanced type of treatment that has shown effectiveness among chronic pain patients is dry needling. This technique differs from acupuncture because needles are inserted into muscles in ways that target specific tissue fibers and areas. It’s done with the intent of ignoring meridian lines and common acupuncture paths; rather than attempting to relieve symptoms without targeting other areas that may be their source, dry needling seeks specific tissues and muscles out.
Triggering specific fibers tends to help eliminate decades-long tension issues many patients still face long after their original source of discomfort; it essentially resets pain pathways and releases problematic muscle contraction patterns.
Incorporating Other Healthcare Professionals
In some cases, it may also be beneficial for chronic pain patients to work collaboratively with a range of professionals. These multidisciplinary teams can consist of chiropractors, PTs, psychologists, exercise physiologists, doctors and others who typically all have different knowledge bases and can share those with one another for their respective patients.
While a patient might be experiencing the same “condition” across various medical disciplines (in this case chronic pain), it’s important for each individual practitioner involved in their care plan to understand what each other is working towards. It’s also important that they don’t think in isolation when developing treatment plans; instead, they should develop a way in which they feel others’ concepts work alongside their own.
Incorporating Mental Health Focus
One aspect of the multidisciplinarity we usually don’t think about is also incorporating mental health-related practitioners into this mix as well. Chronic conditions change our bodies physically over time; however they also inevitably affect our mindsets at times too. In order for successful control efforts to also be completely effective, it’s important we address the true range of effects that lengthy feelings of helplessness create on our psyche.
For chronic pain patients, this impact definitely includes increasing feelings of depression, anxiety and overall helplessness at times during especially difficult days or when chronic pain seems overwhelming.
Treating these psychological components separately can include working on focusing strategies or promoting the use of mindfulness techniques; both tend to calm the nervous systems down from flaring up at the thought of activity or movements as this is what ultimately promotes its negative thoughts from acting out on its fear.
Promoting Easier Recovery Plans
Another concept that many of these “advanced” approaches consider? Working towards creating a recovery plan instead of a treatment plan. While treating an injury often focuses on immediate results during one’s time in the office or via their provider(s), creating an environment conducive to healing requires its outcomes be focused on long-term efforts at times.
Therefore one concept that seems successful amongst various continuously-negative outcome chronic pain environments include creating a longer-term recovery plan rather than a “treatment plan.” Considerations included within this plan could range from learning about body mechanics and form, specific individualized exercises for recovery vs those aimed at treating injuries or speeding up recovery, having a team work alongside one another rather than think in isolation about treatment experiences with each patient, that often pose hurdles when attempting to treat them appropriately back towards feeling “normal”
Moving Forward with Realistic Expectations
Recovery from chronic pain rarely follows a straight line. There will be good days and setbacks, periods of improvement followed by temporary flare-ups. Understanding this pattern helps people stay committed to their treatment plan even when progress feels slow.
The goal isn’t necessarily to eliminate all pain forever, but rather to reduce it to manageable levels while improving overall function and quality of life. Many people find that once they discover the right combination of treatments, they can return to activities they thought they’d lost forever.
Finding effective treatment for persistent pain often requires patience and willingness to try approaches beyond basic care. The key is working with practitioners who understand that chronic conditions need comprehensive solutions, not just symptom management.
