Painkiller no longer works, what to do?
When pain relief stops working, it can feel incredibly insecure. The degree of pain you feel may even go up because your sense of control over the pain has become diminished. This is because a sense of control over pain allows you to tolerate more pain than if this feeling is absent. The moment you notice that your painkiller is not working properly, you still get an unsettling feeling that you have surrendered a piece of control.
Fortunately, there are several steps you can take if your painkiller is no longer working. Therefore, be sure to continue reading this blog.
Types of painkillers
It is important to note that there are multiple types of painkillers. If one painkiller no longer works, it may be enough to switch to another type of painkiller that does its job.
You have 4 types of painkillers, namely:
- Paracetamol
- Anti-inflammatory painkillers
- COX-2 inhibitors
- Opioids
Almost everyone is familiar with paracetamol. It is the safest of all painkillers and can even be used during pregnancy. In addition, paracetamol can also lower fever.
In addition, there are also anti-inflammatory pain relievers. These have the unpleasant side effect of potentially causing stomach bleeding. Ibuprofen is one example.
COX-2 inhibitors also lower inflammation and act on enzymes responsible for signaling pain in inflammation. Paracetamol also acts on an enzyme for pain, but that is not linked to inflammation and these are.
Opioids are painkillers derived from opium. They act on receptors in the brain and spinal cord. Morphine is the best-known of these painkillers.
In pain management, people often start with paracetamol and opioids are used last to control pain. This is also because morphine, for example, lowers the pain threshold, so you are in more pain when you stop taking the morphine.
Which painkillers also have anti-inflammatory effects?
So if the pain is caused by inflammation, it’s wise to also use anti-inflammatory pain relievers. Ibuprofen is a pain reliever that also helps reduce inflammation.
Opioids do not work against inflammation. Therefore, if you have severe pain due to inflammation, it is best to use other anti-inflammatories in addition to opioids.
However at some point habituation occurs and then the drugs no longer work. Fortunately, you can deal with pain in other ways that allow you to stop pain medication sooner or even prevent the use of pain medication.
Techniques to reduce pain without medication
Fortunately, there are also techniques to reduce pain without using medication. Some of these are very practical, while other techniques are more mental.
Massage
Much chronic pain is also exacerbated by muscle tension, which can cause pain. A soothing massage helps your muscles relax and can even support your lymphatic system in flushing out toxins more quickly.
Especially for lower back pain, a massage can reduce the pain for up to 6 months before it returns more intensely.
Depending on the pain you have, you can get different massages. One massage technique has a deeper effect in the body than another massage technique.
Stretches
Is there no one to give you a massage? Then stretching your muscles yourself can also help you feel less pain.
Yoga is a fun way to make your body more flexible while also helping against stress symptoms that can also exacerbate pain.
Exercise (guided)
Physical therapy can also help with pain from arthritis, for example. Supervised exercise ensures that you make the movements that cause the least pain. In the process, it can also stimulate joints to actually be less painful by helping natural bodily processes.
With supervised exercise, you can also think about water exercises or strength training.
Alternating hot and cold
Another practical way to suffer less from pain is to alternate heat and cold on and around the area where you have pain.
This heat and cold alternating stimulates blood flow in that area of the body, allowing important nutrients to do their job better there and eliminating toxins from inflammation faster.
This can provide pain relief.
Calming Techniques
The fact that everyone has a different pain threshold also shows that pain can be experienced subjectively. This, in turn, demonstrates that your mental attitude toward pain influences how severe the pain feels to you.
For example, stress and anxiety often increase pain, especially if you suffer from chronic pain.
That's why it's important to grab regular, say daily, moments in the day when you start to relax very consciously.
For example, starting each morning with meditation lowers the amount of stress hormones released for the entire day.
Focusing on breathing, as in meditation, is an important technique for relaxation. In fact, many tensions come from thoughts about the future or something bothering you from the past.
Focusing on breathing is a way to bring your attention to the here and now. This prevents you from thinking too much about stressful issues.
In the process, this also helps your body take in enough oxygen to really relax properly. If you are still thinking a lot about stressful or anxious issues then you can also use other mindfulness techniques that will help you relax.
Hypnosis techniques
Hypnosis also helps tremendously to use your mental powers to suffer less. These tips can be practically applied with a lot of practice and possibly guidance from a hypnotherapist.
This is because the subconscious mind also has an awful lot of influence on your perception of pain, and it is precisely this subconscious mind that is influenced with hypnosis.
Volume button
The volume control technique is one you can use when you have mastered self-hypnosis. Before that, you can also apply this technique with a hypnotherapist.
In this technique, visualizing by placing a volume knob in front of your mind's eye is very important. With that volume knob, you then control how much pain you allow to pass through to your brain and how much does not.
First and foremost, self-hypnosis involves relaxing with the aforementioned relaxation techniques. Through breathing, muscle relaxation and quieting your mind. Next, you can visualize the volume knob and turn it up or down.
You can practice this first with a hypnotherapist to really have full control of the button and thus your pain.
Visualization of a fine painless bubble
Another visualization you can have is that of a pleasant bubble. Do you suffer a lot from environmental factors that cause your pain to get worse? Then you can use self-hypnosis to visualize a kind of invisible bubble around you that acts as a kind of protective shield against those external factors.
These are now muted or stopped altogether, preventing them from making the pain worse.
You can also practice this technique with a hypnotherapist first.
Visualization of a nice relaxing place
Sometimes you also just need to escape the pain. In that case, you can actually use a visualization that also helps you relax. The visualization of a nice place is a visualization in which you lie comfortably in a place that you associate with relaxation.
This could be a place you’ve visited on vacation, or a place that exists only in your imagination—or even in a movie. For some people, Rivendell from *The Lord of the Rings* seems like the ideal place to relax.
During this visualization, you first lie down relaxed and focus on breathing. Then you visualize being in that place. How it feels to be there, what the temperature is, whether you feel a breeze and the fine rays of the sun.
By holding this visualization for 10 minutes, you will see that it can help tremendously to relax and escape pain for a while.
Beliefs about pain
Your beliefs about pain can also have a major impact on how you experience it. For example, do you believe that pain isn’t a natural part of life? If so, even a stomach cramp might feel like you’re “seriously ill.”
Together with a hypnotherapist, you can find out what beliefs you have about pain. Then the hypnotherapist can help you change those beliefs so that you are less bothered by pain and can live your life more the way you want.
For example, a hypnotherapist does this with hypnotic suggestions. These suggestions cause beliefs that make the pain worse to become less important and beliefs that cause you to feel less pain to become stronger.
In addition, a hypnotherapist can also help you with beliefs through visualizations about your pain experience in everyday life. By showing you how to deal with it differently in this way, your beliefs can also change.
Want to learn more about mental techniques to change your life? Then check out the book *Break Free* or come to a workshop.
Sources:
https://www.everydayhealth.com/pain-management/physical-treatments-for-pain.aspx