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26th Nov 2021
There are various ways to treat chronic pain. Some of them are common like pain-relieving medications or massage. But others are less known and can even be shocking. But contrary to popular belief, "weird" does not automatically imply "experimental". While some of these procedures are cutting-edge, others have been in use for generations.
Here are five unusual options to treat chronic pain you should be aware of.
This method can be used to treat many types of pain including back pain, neck pain, headache, facial pain, and shoulder pain. Electrical stimulation, also known as transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS), is a technique that transmits electricity into your muscles, causing them to contract and relax. At TENS therapy, the doctor applies on the targeted area stickers that provide electrical current straight to the muscle. TENS devices help roughly half of the individuals who use them to ease chronic muscular pain.
Electrical impulses also trigger the release of endorphins which prevent pain messages from reaching the brain. While TENS is a common part of physical therapy for chronic pain treatment, you can find these devices at online retailers for home use. Consult an experienced pain management doctor if you aren’t sure about the model of device you need.
Bee venom acupuncture is used to treat painful inflammatory conditions like rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, and gout. While bee venom acupuncture might not seem like a good way to treat pain, over a hundred researches evaluating bee venom acupuncture show that it is a successful pain therapy method. Honeybee venom improves blood circulation, softens tissues, decreases inflammation, and enhances the production of feel-good neurotransmitters.
Doctors may prescribe bee venom acupuncture in the office but you may also perform this procedure at home. Bee venom is also sold online in the form of skin treatments and food supplements. Of course, avoid this procedure if you are allergic.
Surprisingly, sugar can be used to treat painful or loose ligaments, tendons, and joints. But you need to understand that this isn't a license for a new Oreo habit. Sugar that comes with food cannot treat pain. Moreover, it can trigger or aggravate discomfort. The procedure called Prolotherapy uses a sugar solution to stimulate healing processes in your body.
The sugar solution that is usually dextrose with an added anesthetic, irritates the injured joint and signals an injury to the brain stimulating the inflammation of the joint. As a result, your brain sends platelets to the "injured" area. This makes your immune system make the area swell and then build the tissue that will protect the injury. This helps produce scar tissue in that area to stiffen up a joint and ligaments in the joint, allowing the joint to become more stable.
The procedure when the doctor uses your own blood is called Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP) therapy. It can be used to treat muscle and joint injuries, tendon or ligament pain. At this procedure, the doctor takes two vials of your blood and places them in a machine that spins them fast enough to separate the components. The platelets are then separated, suspended in plasma, and injected directly into the damaged region. Rather than encouraging platelets to flow to an injury, PRP gets directly into the inflammatory process to boost healing.
If you cannot relieve chronic pain with the help of traditional treatment options, you may consider trying spider venom. This is the substance spiders use to paralyze their victims and suck them dry. Spider venom might be the next big step in pain management.
Seven chemicals in spider venom have recently been discovered by scientists as a blocker, a critical phase in your body's pain mechanism. The paralytic effectively disables one of the body's sodium channels, which delivers pain signals to the brain. Substances in spider venom may help calm nerves or control pain when it is translated into a medication. But scientists still need more research to safely use spider venom.
