Chronic Pain & Pain Management

Debilitating back pain can affect your daily life. There are a number of reasons for debilitating back pain, including muscle strain, issues with the spine, arthritis, ruptured or bulging discs, sciatica, injury, and more. Depending on the cause, you may be dealing with ongoing symptoms and pain. This strain can lead to issues with performing everyday tasks.

According to the AAFP, chronic headaches are when a person experiences a headache for 15 days (or more) each month for a minimum of three months. They also note that though there are a number of different types of headaches, chronic migraines and chronic tension-type headaches are most common. A number of factors can play into your likelihood of experiencing chronic headaches. They include genetics, environment, your health (whether you are suffering from another illness), and your overall well-being (whether you are under stress). Regardless, it is important to get to the root cause(s) of your headaches. Additionally, as with any chronically occurring pain, chronic headaches can cause a significant disruption in your daily life and, when not dealt with, can also affect your emotional health.

Peripheral nerves are the nerves in the body that are not in the brain or spinal cord. When a person is suffering from peripheral neuropathy, that means that those particular nerves have been damaged. As a result, the information that those nerves are sending back and forth to the central nervous system is affected. One of the consequences of this damage can be pain. Other symptoms of peripheral neuropathy can be tingling sensations or numbness in your hands and feet (this may also travel up your arms and legs), sensitivities to touch, motor difficulties, and more. Peripheral neuropathy can occur as a result of several illnesses such as diabetes, certain autoimmune diseases, infections such as shingles, HIV, vitamin deficiencies, genetics, alcoholism, and more.

Fibromyalgia is a chronic condition that tends to occur in women more often than in men. There is still much to be understood and learned about fibromyalgia; however, a typical symptom is pain throughout the body. There is no known cure for this condition.