What do you do when pain medication doesn’t work for you? When you can’t get any relief? I know how this feels because it happened to me and I have to look for alternative solutions.
Those of us who have been in pain or those who are currently battling pain conditions know the personal and emotional costs.
I’m not anti-pharmaceutical or anti-pain medications. There are some great pain and life-saving medications. If they are working for you – thank goodness for them! It’s just that prescribed pain medications did not work for me in the past and so I had to ascertain the cause of my pain and then work to eliminate it at the source.
For the vast majority of people I come into contact in a clinic situation, pain medications are also not working for them and so many have been left in painful limbo. Sometimes those medications may have worked well initially but because the cause of the pain was not addressed, they lost their potency and good effect. Sometimes the side effects outweigh the benefits.
While pain meds are invaluable to handle pain in acute or emergency situations, for long-term chronic pain they can sometimes be temporary ‘band-aid’ solutions that may come with side effects and decreases in efficiency.
So if you do not want to be reliant on prescription medications forever, again it becomes important to deal with WHY you are getting pain and HOW you are going to fix it for the long term.
Of course everybody is different, medications and treatments that have worked for others with similar conditions cannot always be guaranteed to work for you. Different genetics, raised in diverse environments, having been exposed to unique combinations of chemicals and toxins, eating differently, having various personalities, emotional states and abilities to handle stress and disease etc. Likewise the therapies and techniques that worked for me and for my clients cannot be guaranteed but at least they are safe to try and will support your health in other ways.
The reality is that no one can give you a guarantee because people are wonderful, complex beings who can be massively unpredictable. Sometimes the only way to know whether something will work for you is to try, and if that doesn’t work try something else. Keep taking positive action and don’t get angry if your doctor, therapist, medication or supplement doesn’t work straight away for you. More time might be needed, maybe some fine-tuning or perhaps it’s not the right answer for you just now.
I know it can be hard (sometimes excruciatingly hard) but be grateful that you are learning along the way and it is important to keep moving forward. Take responsibility and realise that you have to do something different if you want different and positive results. If you become complacent and keep doing what you have always done, then chances are that you will keep getting the same results and the same pain!
When I was diagnosed with MS and orthodox medicine had no cure and no hope for me, I had to be determined (some called it stubborn) and try out things for myself and persist, keep going even when there was no hope. If I’d given up and prepared for my demise like my neurologist had advised me all those years ago, I would never have recovered, got married, had children and had a wonderful career helping people.
So if you are currently in a similar situation, my heart goes out to you but please whatever you do, don’t give up.
Patience and commitment are extremely important as usually the longer you’ve had a pain condition, the more time and effort it takes to turn it around. It’s a bit like the momentum of a runaway train. Once pain has become entrenched, it develops a momentum of its own which requires a lot of effort to firstly slow down the progression and then to gradually bring it to a stop.
It then takes another mighty effort to reverse the direction of that “pain train” and commence your healing journey. So be prepared to put in your best effort – this is the most important work you’ll ever do!
For more information on how I beat my pain, naturally, you can check out my book DRUG FREE PAIN RELIEF.
If you would like to see if I can assist you personally, book in for a free 15 minute consult to discuss your needs.
