Taking non-pharmaceutical approaches to pain management is the route many Americans are going. Some are allergic or don’t want to deal with the side effects. Others simply tried everything and nothing’s working. When you feel chronic pain in key areas of your body, the last thing you want to do is allow it to control you. Skip on the medication, and take a natural route to curing your pain.

Massage Therapy

If it’s your muscles that are directly affected most of the tie, especially when you’re dealing with chronic pain. If that’s the case, regular massage therapy could be the perfect option. Not only will you reduce muscle inflammation, but you can also feel a complete relief to pain and the symptoms of whatever you have going on with regular massage therapy.

Alleviating the stress and tension on your muscles can also allow small bouts of healing when under the right circumstances. If you’ve been enduring pain for a long time, you probably don’t even remember what relief feels like. During and after massage therapy, you’ll be in a sense of euphoria, all without having to take a single bit of medication.

TENS Therapy

This refers to a small device that emits electrical pulses that can dig into your muscles, and alleviate pain. It’s becoming an increasingly popular method for those wishing to alleviate pain through non-pharmaceutical means, and is completely safe to use. While some areas in the United States don’t look at TENS therapy to be a valid route, patients who have undergone it would beg to differ.

Applying Heat

You don’t have to apply patches to your body. Those contain medications that get absorbed by your skin, and don’t actually alleviate pain the way that they should. Skip the menthol scent and the discomfort that those patches give you. Your skin also gets all oily, and often feels wet because your pores are being suffocated by medical applications. Use a heating pad or a heated blanket across an area that’s in consistent pain, and feel it all melt away.

Applying Cold

Working in a similar fashion to applying heat, you can apply icepacks or cold towels to any area that is causing you pain. This will reduce swelling. When you reduce swelling, you’re reducing the inflamed skin that’s pressing on your nerves. Most times, applying cold to the site can offer more relief than applying heat. The popular method of this is when you see Icy Hot patches in stores, and their motto tells you that you should numb the pain, and then melt it away. You can apply this same knowledge if you wish by applying a heating pack to your skin and then a cold pack, all without taking a pharmaceutical approach.

Physical Therapy

If you’re endured an injury and the effects are lasting for years (which can sometimes be referred to as phantom pain), then you’ve been putting up with it long enough. Physical therapy can be a long road, but the best road to recovery when you’ve suffered extensive damage to your body. The biggest thing to remember with physical therapy is that you can never skip a day. There’s no off-day. Whatever your physical therapist says, they’re saying for a reason. Follow their instructions, and the pain will reduce over time, allowing you to feel a full sense of relief.

Chiropractic Adjustments

While many have their skepticism on chiropractic adjustments, the results don’t lie. When you have chronic pain, especially in your back, you’re more susceptible to injuring yourself further. If you baby your back (and it’s in pain, who wouldn’t?) you’re slowly allowing those muscles to atrophy, and making it more likely that they’ll suffer pain and injury in the future.

A chiropractic adjustment is the solution to many people’s pain, especially when they feel it in their lower back. Undergoing the careful hands of a chiropractor has helped millions of Americans, and it can help you. The biggest thing that patients say after receiving an adjustment is, “Wow, I didn’t expect the relief to be immediate.” How are you going to get that with medications? Exactly—you’re not.

Your Next Chiropractic Adjustment

With all the negatives to leading medications, you don’t want to take a pharmaceutical path so your pain, and you shouldn’t have to. Call the Pain Care Clinic of Idaho at (208) 629-2492 to get more information on how a chiropractic adjustment or other non-pharmaceutical approach to pain reduction could benefit you immediately.