Chronic Pain
Chronic pain is a prevalent condition in Australia. One in five Australians aged 45 and over live with persistent, ongoing pain.
This pain can be disabling and stressful, making it challenging for individuals to work and enjoy their daily activities without being forced to reduce one’s quality of life and productivity.
Includes a Complimentary 3D Body Composition Scan
What is chronic pain?
Chronic pain is pain that lasts beyond the normal healing time after an injury or illness, usually lasting three to six months.
It is a common and complex condition, and the pain experienced can range from mild to severe. The defining characteristic of chronic pain is that it is ongoing and experienced on most days of the week.
Pain that is acute, or short-term, is a response to damaged tissue and usually disappears once the tissue has healed. Chronic pain is more complex and may result from damage to body tissue from an acute or chronic condition, or changes in the nerves or nervous system that result in the nerves continuing to signal pain after the original condition has healed (Painaustralia 2019a).
What does chronic pain feel like?
Patients suffering from chronic pain describe their pain in many different ways for example:
- Aching
- Burning
- Squeezing
- Stiffness
- Stinging
- Throbbing
In order to increase well-being and one’s quality of life, it is important to manage chronic pain.
What can cause chronic pain?
Chronic pain can be a result of injury, surgery, musculoskeletal conditions such as arthritis, or other medical conditions such as cancer, endometriosis or migraines. In some cases, there may be no apparent physical cause (Treede et al. 2015; Painaustralia 2019a).
Chronic pain may have an evident origin at times, as it may stem from a prolonged illness such as arthritis or cancer, which can lead to persistent discomfort. Injuries or diseases can also cause alterations to the body, making it more responsive to pain, and such changes can persist even after healing from the initial injury or disease.
For instance, a sprain, broken bone or short-term infection may lead to chronic pain. Some individuals experience chronic pain that is not linked to a physical illness or injury.
Healthcare professionals refer to this as psychogenic pain or psychosomatic pain, which is caused by psychological factors such as
- Anxiety
- Stress
- Depression
- Sleep Disturbance and Insomnia
- Fatigue
- Restlessness and Stress
Some researchers attribute this connection to insufficient levels of endorphins in the bloodstream, which are natural chemicals that trigger positive sensations. Pain can have multiple overlapping causes, such as having two different illnesses or experiencing migraines and psychogenic pain simultaneously.
How can Vivitality help you to fight chronic pain?
At Vivitality, we embrace a holistic approach to healthcare that seeks to address the underlying causes of health issues, instead of merely alleviating symptoms.
Our objective is to equip patients with the latest diagnostic tools and customised treatment plans that cater to their specific requirements and objectives. We firmly believe that people of all ages and health conditions have the potential to attain optimal well-being and vigour.
We go to the root of your chronic pain and tackle it from here by testing different markers that will allow us to know in which stage of chronic pain you are.
Stages of Chronic Pain are:
Stage 1: Systemic Inflammation
Stage 2: Toxicity of which the digestive system, immune system, circulatory system and/or endocrine system (hormones) are affected
Stage 3: Fibrosis, here is where actual pain starts being more evident
Stage 4: Damage, here is where a chronic disease develops
We have developed the ‘Chronic Pain Intro Pack’ which will allow us to determine the root of your chronic condition, set up the best strategy and achieve long-term results.
