The Emotional and Physical Toll of Chronic Pain

Pain management doctors in Houston, Texas understand firsthand how difficult it can be for an individual who is battling with severe pain. There are multiple challenges that people who have chronic pain deal with every single day. On the one hand, they are dealing with the physical discomfort that comes from the pain itself. On the other hand, they are dealing with the emotional discomfort that comes from being in pain and their friends and family members not truly understanding the pain that they are in.

What makes chronic pain so terrible for a lot of people is how it can present itself in individuals who show no outward physical signs of having anything wrong with them. So their friends and family look at them and they see a person who looks healthy, they see a person who looks young, they see a person who is attractive, and they wonder why in the world is it that this person can’t go about living a normal life.

When the individual who is suffering from the chronic pain tries to explain the way that they feel to their friends and family members, they are often met with negative responses. One of the worst things that friends and family members might say to the individual is that he or she doesn’t look sick.

All of these things take an emotional toll. After a while, the friends and family members of the individual who is battling with chronic pain get tired of hearing about it. So they start to pull away. At the same time, the individual who is battling with chronic pain gets tired of making up excuses for not being able to do things, and they get tired of trying to convince their friends and family members that they are dealing with serious pain, so they withdraw into a shell.

So you take this emotional detachment that develops and you couple it with the physical pain that the individual is experiencing and it’s clear to see why many chronic pain sufferers find themselves battling an uncontrollable form of depression.

Thankfully, there is hope. Modern pain management techniques have been designed that not only help sufferers address the physical pain that they are dealing with, but it also help sufferers address the emotional challenges that they are facing. Modern pain management can provide a suffer with exactly what they need to learn how to handle their pain and get back to living a normal life.