Have you heard? It’s National Pain Awareness Week.

Did you know? Over 17% of the general community report chronic pain, with the annual cost of chronic pain estimated to exceed $10 billion.

Even the president of the Canadian Pain Coalition refers to pain as ‘a way of life’ and that she has ‘developed my own ways to cope with this disease’.  Pain should not be a ‘way of life.’ Coping with pain is very different than removing pain. If you are someone suffering with persistent pain, the question you should ask is, why?

Imagine a truck rolling over on HWY 401 and everyone just drives around it. We feel pain that we either ignore or mask with non-prescription and prescription drugs. That’s like throwing a giant tarp over the overturned truck and pretending it isn’t there. Shutting off your pain temporarily is shutting off the pain receptors to the brain. That’s like putting a gag on someone who is screaming. You’re still hurt; you just can’t hear it anymore.

We need to understand that pain is merely a symptom, not the disease. Instead of asking ‘what does this pain mean?’ we solve the symptom and defer the problem for another day.  One of the ways to ‘solve the problem’ is in understanding how the human body works. Our bodies are highly efficient and adaptive machines. Trauma, injury, and especially stress affect how well that machine runs. When thing go wrong, the body responds with messages. The most common of these messages is pain.

You touch a hot stove; your body is negatively affected by the heat and wants you to stop touching the hot stove. Suddenly, you feel a giant ‘OUCH!’ and you pull back. Message received.

With chronic pain the conversation is not as simple. The stress to the body is continuous and you simply have not heard, understood, or ignored the pain (message) until it became so great (loud) that you sat up and noticed. For situations like these, you need a translator.

Complementary medicine is at the forefront in non-invasive treatments for chronic pain. Since pain is about blockages (overturned truck) and complementary medicine focuses on energetic healing (clearing the roadway), it is a proven method for ‘problem solving’. Some of the more common therapies include: acupuncture, chiropractic, biofeedback and reikki.

Biofeedback has been used to retrain muscles, treat migraine pain and fibromyalgia among other forms of chronic pain. A newer form of biofeedback, call quantum biofeedback, uses a in-depth computer program to identify possible causes for your pain; even ones you might not have thought of. Things like diet, stress, and your environment can contribute to chronic pain.

You can live a clean, healthy, pain-free life. Pain is not something you should accept, nor should you let anyone make you suffer in silence. Don’t shut off your brain, shut of the reason behind your pain!