Understanding what helps you through paintracking allows you to amass strategies to prevent and relieve pain. Heat in various forms soothes aching muscles as does gentle stretching. Meditation, hypnotherapy and self-hypnosis, biofeedback, and diaphragmatic breathing exercises all offer ways to lower the thermostat on pain. For some, massage therapy works wonders. Pain medications help people to feel well enough to do the other things necessary to improve and live a fuller life.
Some doctors prescribe pain medications to be taken proactively.
The analgesic effects of medications are more effective before pain escalates. Discuss with your doctor short versus longer acting medications. For others, stronger medications such as narcotics are needed. Some physicians are reluctant to prescribe narcotics for long-term use, a bias that stems from a fear of addiction. There is an important distinction between physical dependence and addiction.