Accidents usually happen within no time. You just cannot prepare yourself to escape from an unforeseen event. According to WHO, about 1.19 million people lose their lives in road accidents a year.
However, the consequences after the accident are scary and worrisome. You may get severely injured or sadly lose your life.
With severe injuries comes another worry where the pain could turn into chronic pain after the recovery phase. Chronic pain can affect your mobility, your mental state, and how you feel overall.
In this article, we’ll focus on the top 3 strategies for managing your chronic pain post-accident.
The Reality of Accidents in Urban Cities
Life in an urban city moves at a rapid speed. Busy streets, traffic congestion, and a lot of pedestrian activity. Having said all this, the risk of accidents along with a devastating injury also increases with so much hustle and bustle.
In addition, serious injuries can ruin a victim’s life and the lives of his or her family. Fortunately, they can seek financial compensation for the pain and suffering borne, says TorHoerman Law.
For example, in an urban city like St. Louis, this reality is quite evident. Recently, a 73-year-old woman named Cheryl Doyon crashed her car into a home and lost her life. As per the reports the accident happened at Kingston Drive near Telegraph Road, St. Louis.
The police after their primary investigation concluded that the lady was driving at an extremely high speed. She eventually lost control, hit an embankment, and then hit straight to the house.
Although the lady died in this case, most accidents leave people with serious injuries and chronic pain. In 2022, the U.S. reported 227,039 preventable deaths and 63 million injuries.
Speaking of chronic pain, the pain could be neck or back pain or prolonged pain after fractures from a slip-and-fall accident. It’ll eventually affect your daily routine and relationships, and cost you a lot of money in medical bills.
If you are a resident of St. Louis involved in an accident and suffering from chronic pain, you should know your options. Ideally, you would want to seek advice from a St. Louis personal injury lawyer.
Having a personal injury lawyer around can help with the legal aspects of your accident. It’s a good way to gain reasonable compensation for medical care that might help manage your chronic pain.
Effective Strategies for Managing Chronic Pain
Strategy 1: Partnering with a Pain Management Specialist
Chronic pain demands specialized care to manage the persistent pain effectively. Therefore, consulting a pain management specialist who is good at diagnosing, treating, and managing ongoing pain becomes important.
Here is the step-by-step process that a pain management specialist ideally follows:
Accurate Diagnosis
A pain specialist will first do a thorough evaluation to understand the underlying pain cause. This step will include a medical examination, your health history, and imaging tests like X-rays or MRIs.
Personalized Treatment Plan
Once the cause of pain is identified, the specialist will come up with a customized treatment plan. The plan will include medications like pain relievers, muscle relaxants, etc to manage pain. Then, there could be a physical therapy program to help you get stronger, more agile, and more mobile.
There are other cases as well where injections are given or nerve blocks to target specific pain sources.
Strategy 2: Mind-Body Techniques for Pain Relief
Stress and anxiety could aggravate the chronic pain and can worsen the situation. Fortunately, there are proven techniques like mind-body techniques that will help you manage your emotions and give relief.
Mind-body techniques are practices that are mainly focused on connecting body and mind. With a few effective relaxation skills, you can break this stress cycle and learn to reduce your stress.
The other important benefit that you get with this technique is learning to divert your mind away from the pain. Once you learn to divert your mind, you will feel less discomfort and a reduction in pain intensity.
Some of the most popular examples of mind-body techniques are meditation, yoga, and deep breathing exercises. Although these practices can be highly effective, you need to be patient and consistent to get the best out of them.
Strategy 3: Building a Support System
The emotional burden of dealing with chronic pain could be overwhelming. This unusual feeling could lead to depression, frustration, and loneliness. Ultimately this will worsen your pain experience.
However, having a strong support system helps you cope with chronic pain better. A report by Sage Journals shows that people with good social support experience less stress from chronic pain. The question is, where do you find strong support?
- Speak to your loved ones. Share your experiences and challenges with those who are ready to listen and can offer some advice.
- Connect with those who understand what you are going through. Sharing experiences and getting emotional support could make you feel at home.
- Seek professional therapy. Therapists can help you deal with the emotional challenges that chronic pain brings.
Let’s put it this way. Chronic pain is a traumatic reality, but it doesn’t have to control you. The strategies mentioned in this article will make it easier for you to deal with chronic pain.
You’ll need a pain specialist to assess and recommend a treatment plan. Consider different approaches, like medication, physical therapy, mind-body techniques, and other treatments.
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