Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash

Hey it has been a long while since I have last updated the blog. I have completed my foundation training last year August and given an offer to do general practice training which I have accepted. Hence, I am currently doing general practice rotations which I quite enjoy to be honest. While I have seen quite a variety of patients in the community settings, I have come across a lot of patients who have suffered from chronic pain for years secondary to conditions such as osteoarthritis which I will be talking about today.

More often than not, these patients who have had osteoarthritis pain would have at least two or three medications that they are taking daily to ease the pain that they are having. Instead of depending on medications to ease the pain, there are a lot more ways to improve the pain that you are having with osteoarthritis. Below are the top five non pharmacological tips to help with chronic pain.

1. Continue to Be As Active As Possible

All too often when people are suffering from chronic pain, they will stop mobilizing or reduce their daily activities. As it is the natural and easiest thing that we can do in order to stop or ease the pain aside from taking painkillers, what people tend not to notice is that the brain acts as an amplifier telling them that ‘the more you move, the more pain you inflict on yourself’. Hence, it is important to keep your activity ongoing as tolerable as ‘motion is lotion’.

2. Take painkillers as necessary

Some people are very afraid of the side effects of medications so they would rather suffer with the pain that taking any painkillers at all. This is a very wrong concept as simple analgesia such as paracetamol and ibuprofen help to ease of chronic pain from time to time. But when it comes to opioid based medications such as codeine and tramadol, these medications tend to have more risks and side effects particularly in elderly population. Hence, it is not advisable to take opioid medications.

3. Strengthening Your Muscles

Chronic pain due to conditions like osteoarthritis generally results from usual wear and tear as we age. It happens when the bones are grinding against each other when the cartilages that acts as cushion have worn off. Hence, the next sensible thing that you can do apart from taking painkillers is to strengthen the surrounding muscles to help to bear the weights and relieve symptoms as well as improving the function of joints. Attached it the link that you can use to browse through tips for muscle strengthening exercise Arthritis action UK

4. Adopt a Healthy Lifestyle

Again and again, lifestyle modification is the biggest factor contributing to chronic pain relief. For those who are slightly above their average BMI or living a sedentary lifestyle, engaging in physical activities about 30 minutes a day for 5 days a week prove to improve chronic pain in general. It can be any form of exercise, as long as you are sweating and putting in effort. Additionally, diet control also plays a vital role in managing chronic pain as it contributes to inflammation as well as help reduce it.

5. Manage Your Mental Health

Last but not least, it is important to take care of your mental health when it comes to managing chronic pain. Often people tend to ignore their mental health aspect which is important as persistent pain can in fact lower mood and results in depression especially in elderly population as they tend to have reduced mobility as well. Most people tend to focus on the pain so much so that their lives are revolved around the pain that they are having. The video from Live Well With Pain explains the reason people should not let pain control their lives.