Chronic pain affects not just the person suffering from it, but everyone close to that person. It can be difficult to know how to be there for your loved one with chronic pain. Fortunately, there are lots of ways you can help them through their pain.
Chronic pain conditions are isolating and debilitating, but more than anything they are stressful. Sometimes the most important resource for someone suffering is a support system of friends and family. This goes a long way in helping them feel less alone.
How To Support Someone With Chronic Pain
Learn About Their Condition
It can be difficult to guess what your loved one is going through – so don’t. Read up on the condition, listen to testimonials and firsthand accounts, and most importantly, believe your loved one when they tell you how they feel. The good news is you have already started this step, or you wouldn’t be reading this article.
Remember that you have to judge their thoughts and actions based on their condition. Chronic pain can be difficult to understand when viewed from the outside looking in.
Talk To Them
This goes hand in hand with the last one – instead of trying to guess how you can help them, just ask them. It may be difficult for them to open up and ask you for the help they really need (because of the aforementioned socially isolating effects of their condition), so assure them you care about them and are happy to do whatever you can to help.
Offer To Join Them On Appointments
Waiting room anxiety is a real thing. Offer to drive your loved one out to their appointment or join them so they remember they don’t have to face it alone.
Encourage Good Habits
Chronic pain or not, everyone should try eating a healthy diet and exercising regularly. Those who suffer from chronic pain may find great relief if they support their physical health.
Encourage Them
Supporting your mental health may also ease the pain of your condition. It’s not as simple as telling them to think happy thoughts, but you can help your loved one keep high morale and look at the bright side by supporting them.
Treating Chronic Pain
The focus of chronic pain treatment is to reduce the pain symptoms enough to give a person control of their life back.
Ketamine for Chronic Pain
Though ketamine was first approved by the FDA for use as an anesthetic, it has since found significant use as a pain reliever in recent decades, with many organizations now recommending it for the treatment of chronic pain conditions.
Research into ketamine infusions for treating pain is an ever-expanding field, but it is generally believed that Ketamine helps to foster connections between synapses and restore damaged nerve connections, essentially “rewiring” the brain. Ketamine infusions may be particularly effective at not only treating the pain symptoms of Chronic Pain Syndrome, but also the additional depression and anxiety symptoms.
The recent FDA approval of Spravato (a ketamine-based nasal spray for treatment-resistant depression), as well as the development of new psychedelics research centers by John Hopkins, may indicate a shift in the chronic pain treatment industry, providing innovative new options like ketamine infusion to those who experience persistent and treatment-resistant chronic pain.
Contact us today to learn more about our innovative new treatment options.
