Reclaiming your life from pain
Medically reviewed by Drugs.com
If you live with pain on a day to day basis, you will know how much it can take over your life.
You plan your days around your pain, avoiding activities that aggravate it in favor of a more sedentary existence that usually involves the couch. Things that you once enjoyed doing fall by the wayside. Pain also impacts your emotional energy as well, reducing your levels of tolerance and patience which ultimately affects your relationship with everybody around you.
Drugs only go so far to relieve pain. But it is perhaps this “Put a bandage on it” approach that needs to be addressed. Because pain is so much more than a physical sensation. Spiritual, psychological, and social elements contribute to it as well.
Dame Cicely Saunders, best known as the founder of the hospice movement, first introduced the concept of “total pain” which recognizes all the compounding factors that contribute to a person’s pain experience. The significance of these is far greater for the person in pain than for onlookers, which is why medical staff should never assume a person’s level of pain. For example, events such as a child not visiting or being isolated from a much-loved pet may just be enough to tip a person’s pain threshold beyond tolerable.
Taking a more holistic approach to pain management is a much more effective way of managing pain. Nonpharmacological therapies such as meditation, mindfulness, and exercise can help change a person’s relationship with pain and capture and build-on precious pain-free moments.
To explore this concept further, see here.
Posted December 2018
Read this next
Common Meds Appear To Delay Onset Of Parkinson's Disease
THURSDAY, April 17, 2025 -- Common medications like aspirin, ibuprofen, statins and beta blockers appear to slow the progress of Parkinson’s disease, a new study...
Knee Replacement Recovery Time: What You Need To Know
SUNDAY, April 6, 2025 -- Wondering what recovery is really like after knee replacement surgery? Dr. Ayesha Abdeen, chief of hip and knee replacement surgery at Boston...
Virtual Reality Headsets Can Help Ease Cancer Pain
FRIDAY, March 28, 2025 -- Virtual reality (VR) might be able to provide cancer patients significant pain relief, a new study says. A small group of cancer patients reported a...
More news resources
- FDA Medwatch Drug Alerts
- Daily MedNews
- News for Health Professionals
- New Drug Approvals
- New Drug Applications
- Drug Shortages
- Clinical Trial Results
- Generic Drug Approvals
Subscribe to our newsletter
Whatever your topic of interest, subscribe to our newsletters to get the best of Drugs.com in your inbox.