Acute Pain

HealWithin offers Hypnotherapy Treatments for: Asthma, Cancer, Chronic Pain, Depression, Fears/Anxiety, Hypnosis for Childbirth, IBS, Infertility, Insomnia, Menopause, Stop Smoking, Self Esteem, Weight Loss, and Stress

Did you know Acute pain is different from Chronic pain?
There are two types of pain, acute and chronic.

Migrane Headaches

Let us first understand what is Pain - A feeling of distress, suffering, or agony, caused by stimulation of specialized nerve endings. Its purpose is chiefly protective; it acts as a warning that tissues are being damaged and induces the sufferer to remove or withdraw from the source.

Acute pain is familiar to most of us: You feel it when you cut yourself, twist an ankle, or suffer a burn. This kind of pain is a biologically useful symptom that warns of actual or potential physical damage so you can seek treatment or avoid further harm.

(“Acute” in medical terms means only that it has a rapid onset and doesn’t last long.) Acute pain has an identifiable cause and a limited duration. On the other hand, the chronic pain felt with problems such as low back pain or fibromyalgia persists continuously or intermittently for months or years—long past the time when it might be biologically useful—and it doesn’t subside with time or rest.

chronic pain People vary tremendously in their perception of pain.

It’s now accepted that pain is a subjective experience influenced by memory, expectation, stress, fatigue, environment, and genetic programming. This explains why the intensity of a person’s pain may have no relationship to the severity of the injury—because it’s not just the injury itself that causes pain, but also the emotional and learned response to it. There may even be genetic and gender-based differences in pain sensitivity and response to pain medications that are hard-wired into us. These observations have taught us that pain-management programs must be customized for the patient.

Some pain may be here to stay. Coping with the pain is in your hands.

Did you know parts of your body such as muscle, have memory?

Sometimes chronic pain has no obvious physical cause. The original wound may have healed, or there may never have been an injury as severe as the pain would suggest. Also, the brain can feel pain even without any input from the body. For example, an amputee may feel pain in a missing limb. The sensation of physical injury clearly cannot come from a body part that is not there, so it must originate in the brain. It appears that the brain can even cause pain by sending signals that tell nerve endings to release inflammatory chemicals. Chronic pain syndromes can actually change the way the body’s pain-sensing mechanisms and its natural pain-relieving systems operate, so the nervous system becomes more sensitive to pain and less receptive to the brain chemicals that moderate or turn off pain. This “remodeling” of the nervous system is one reason that prominent pain researchers now believe chronic pain should be considered an actual disease of the nervous system.

Chronic pain affects your whole body.

In the cascade of events involved in chronic pain, nerves may sprout sensitive new endings, receptors for natural compounds that alleviate pain may deaden, and pain mechanisms may be triggered by stimuli as benign as a cool breeze. Eventually the whole body may be affected if the depression and anxiety that often accompany chronic pain cause abnormal levels of certain neurotransmitters, chemical messengers that can influence all organ systems. Therefore, a program to manage chronic pain has to work on many fronts.

Inadequately treated pain can lead to chronic pain.

Treating acute pain early and aggressively with painkillers and other therapies can slow the progression of irreversible changes in the nervous system and also limit the creation of long-lasting pain memories that can intensify future responses to painful stimuli.

It is a known fact that Hypnosis assists patients in obtaining deep levels of relaxation, which often leads to more peaceful sleep, increased energy, and a diminished experience of pain.

The following types of complementary treatment have helped many rheumatoid arthritis patients reduce their pain and better cope with the disease:

Heat: Moist heat (a hot towel, warm bath, or shower) or dry heat (a heating pad, placed on the painful area of the joint for about 15 minutes) may relieve symptoms.
Cold: Applying an ice pack or bag of frozen peas wrapped in a towel for 10 to 15 minutes at a time may help stop pain and reduce swelling of RA flare-ups and acutely inflamed joints.
Splints: Using splints or braces allows joints to rest while protecting them from injury. Your physician or occupational therapist can make recommendations on what devices to use and when to use them.
Exercise: Swimming, walking, low-impact aerobics, and range-of- motion exercises may reduce joint pain and stiffness. Gentle strengthening exercises are also helpful in reducing RA joint pain. Make sure you consult with a qualified trainer or physical therapist before beginning an exercise program.
Water exercise: Exercising in water reduces the weight on the joints and may make exercise more comfortable. Many gyms and community center pools offer water exercise classes specifically for people with arthritis.
Acupuncture: A form of Chinese medicine thought to correct imbalances in the patterns of energy flow in the body by inserting special needles in specific areas of the body, acupuncture can stimulate deep sensory nerves that tell the brain to release natural painkillers (endorphins), according to researchers.
Massage: By reducing and relaxing muscle tension and increasing blood flow to a specific area of the body, massage can help patients through a very acute, severe episode of pain. However, massage on its own does not appear to have a prolonged effect on RA symptoms. Inflamed joints are very sensitive, so it’s important to see a massage therapist familiar with treating rheumatoid arthritis patients.
Relaxation techniques: Reducing stress also can reduce pain. Formal stress reduction techniques, such as biofeedback, guided imagery, meditation, or yoga can help, as well as just taking advantage of “simple pleasures” like reading, listening to music, or enjoying a favorite hobby.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy: A form of guided visualization/hypnosis or psychotherapy that emphasizes the important role of thinking in how we feel and what we do, cognitive-behavioral therapy may be helpful in reducing feelings of stress, fatigue, and pain in those with rheumatoid arthritis.