Chronic Pain: Why Is It Important?

The National Institutes for Health has a wealth of information on their website. They noted the following information. “Chronic pain is pain that lasts more than several months (variously defined as 3 to 6 months, but certainly longer than “normal healing”).

It’s a very common problem. Results from the 2012 National Health Interview Survey show that:

• About 25.3 million U.S. adults (11.2 percent) had pain every day for the previous 3 months.
• Nearly 40 million adults (17.6 percent) had severe pain.
• Individuals with severe pain had worse health, used more health care, and had more disability than those with less severe pain.

Chronic pain becomes more common as people grow older, at least in part because health problems that can cause pain, such as osteoarthritis, become more common with advancing age. Not all people with chronic pain have a physician-diagnosed health problem, but among those who do, the most frequent conditions by far are low-back pain or osteoarthritis, according to a national survey. Other common diagnoses include rheumatoid arthritis, migraine, carpal tunnel syndrome, and fibromyalgia. The annual economic cost of chronic pain in the United States, including both treatment and lost productivity, has been estimated at nearly $635 billion.

Chronic pain may result from an underlying disease or health condition, an injury, medical treatment (such as surgery), inflammation, or a problem in the nervous system (in which case it is called “neuropathic pain”), or the cause may be unknown. Pain can affect quality of life and productivity, and it may be accompanied by difficulty in moving around, disturbed sleep, anxiety, depression, and other problems. 

For more information about chronic pain, visit the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.”

THE BOTTOM LINE
There are a number of modalities such as light therapy, vibration therapy and laser therapy that can address chronic pain. Read more at our website www.energiamedical.com/patients. 

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