by Barbara Walker

Created on: August 20, 2009

Exhausting, that is the number one word to describe living with chronic pain. It exhausts your body, your mind and your spirit.

An individual with chronic pain first, must deal with the pain itself. The body undergoes many changes from chronic pain. The obvious, of course, is that you hurt much of the time. The nervous system goes through changes that contribute more to the chronic pain problem. Chronic pain can cause pain processing circuits to operate abnormally, putting a constant strain on the brain and spinal cord. The result is increased levels of pain. In addition, chronic pain results in neural or glial loss in the pre-frontal portion of the brain and the thalamic gray matter. This causes brain atrophy.

All this pain can affect mood, sex drive, other pleasurable activities and sleep. Depression is another medical condition most chronic pain patient's experience.This is due to the pain itself, loss of sense of self, cessation of enjoyable activities and can be a side effect of pain medication.

Experiencing chronic pain and its added problems, we then have to deal with the choices to help us to learn to live with chronic pain. There are many.

* Medications

* Surgery

* Massage

* Physical Therapy

* Acupuncture

* Bio-feedback

* Relaxation Therapy

* Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

* Modalities: Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulator (TENS), for example.

Often, when using the above treatments, chronic pain patients must interface with more than one health care professional. It is important to have practitioners who are understanding of each other's treatments, so there is no conflict for the patient. One very frustrating aspect of medical care, is whether your health insurance carrier will cover the cost of the treatment of your choice.

The correct medication can do much to alleviate chronic pain. When pain level is lower, the patient can participate more readily in physical therapy and enjoy pleasurable activities. The downside of many medications are the side effects. These can include stomach upset, drowsiness, constipation and loss of sex drive.

For some conditions, surgery may be an option. For many back pain sufferers, surgery is not always successful. It is an option to consider very carefully.

Massage can be enormously beneficial for chronic pain patients. When in pain, most people find it difficult to relax, causing various muscle groups to become tense. This, in turn, can

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