Chronic Musculoskeletal Pain

Whenever I get myself down to write a blog, it is usually about something that inspire me that week or that month- usually from the presentation of the client I see in  practice. This time, I would like to share my opinion on chronic pain and a little bit of reality check for you.

Chronic musculoskeletal pain (and in this case, I’m referring to it as the non-specific type of mechanical pain which means, there is no underlying diseases that causes it) often times be seen as something severe because it has been there for a long time and no one seems to know or able to give you a satisfactory answer of what it is that cause it let alone, being able to do something about it.

The bad news is (and I’ll be honest), chronic musculoskeletal pain is not something that any one health professional can claim that they’ll be able to treat. *gasp*…So does that mean we’re doomed? No, we’re not doomed. The idea of treatment of such condition is flawed because there is just simply no such things as magical cure. All of us know that but most of us secretly believe that it isn’t true…” If only I found that right doctor, this would all go away.”

The Good news is, although we can’t treat it, we can always MANAGE it. When you have been in pain for a long time, it affects your postural habits, your biomechanics, your physiology, your brain and central nervous system  chemistry, your function, and even your beliefs about your own health. Chronic pain management (in my practice) means minimizing your pain, optimizing your function, improving your quality of life, and empowering you with good beliefs about your own health, helping you manage it yourself and NOT claiming that I can make that pain you have for the last 10 years to just simply vanished. Sometimes, even I would like to wave that magic wand and make everything permanently good again, but we are living in reality. And pain is perhaps a part of living.