Schedule an Appointment

How Exercise Can Help Chronic Pain

May 12, 2020 | Texas Partners Healthcare Group

Exercise is an Excellent Way to Help Manage Pain

Pain permeates throughout the lives of virtually everyone around the world. Whether you suffer from acute pain or chronic pain, you will likely experience pain in some form in your life. It’s a natural part of life. Pain is your body’s way of letting you know that something is wrong. While some pain is minor and goes away after a couple of days, millions of people across the world suffer from chronic pain. Roughly 50 million U.S. adults suffer from chronic pain, and the estimated overall annual cost of chronic pain is as high as $635 billion a year.

Chronic pain affects people in numerous ways, not just physical. People are always on the lookout for new ways to treat their chronic pain. After all, this pain often impacts their overall quality of life, making it hard to complete tasks they could normally do with ease. Fortunately, there is a host of treatment options available to patients at our Frisco pain management clinic, including ketamine infusions, regenerative medicine, stem cell therapy, and more. At Texas Partners Healthcare Group, we strive to provide our patients with noninvasive treatment options.

However, did you know that exercise can also help reduce your chronic pain? While it may seem counterintuitive because most exercise puts stress on your body, it’s proven to help manage your symptoms. If you suffer from chronic pain and have exhausted all other options, contact Texas Partners Healthcare Group today and let us help.

Types of Chronic Pain

Chronic pain is pain that persists for longer than 12 weeks. As we have previously stated, millions of people across the country are plagued with chronic pain. While there are countless cases of chronic pain, each case is different from the next. There are no two cases of chronic pain that are identical. Due to this fact, what helps one person may not help you. There are several causes of chronic pain that stem from various conditions and injuries. Some of the most common types of chronic pain are:

Other conditions can also lead to chronic pain, such as:

As you can see, chronic pain varies from person to person. At our Frisco pain management clinic, the providers at Texas Partners Healthcare Group will create a unique and personalized treatment plan for you, utilizing various options, including exercise.

Exercise and Chronic Pain

Usually, when people experience chronic pain, they avoid activities that they will lead to a flare-up of symptoms. Most of these activities involve being physically active, like exercising. While resting for short periods of time does allow your body the chance to heal and refresh, staying inactive for too long can increase your pain and increase your risk of suffering an injury the next time you exercise or try to be active.

While people often avoid exercise to keep themselves from experiencing any more pain, it often ends up causing a downward cycle of deconditioning, which increases your pain. Studies have found that exercising does not cause more harm than before, outside of the normal muscle soreness that comes with beginning a new exercise. Additionally, the studies also found that exercise can reduce pain severity and improve physical function.

Exercise can improve your pain symptoms by improving muscle tone, strength, flexibility, and more. It has shown to reduce inflammation, increase mobility, and decrease overall pain levels, all without the need for surgery and medications.

While the common conception is to avoid exercising to protect yourself from further injury and pain, many pain management specialists recommend adding it to treatment programs. Fortunately, there are several different types of exercise to choose from, which gives you the option to find one that works best for you.

Types of Exercise

Typically, exercise is not the only treatment option used to help ease your pain. It is used in conjunction with other treatments. Additionally, more than one exercise is often used together to provide you with the best results. Depending on your state of health, some exercises will be favored more than others. Regardless, exercise can help your chronic pain. Along with improving pain symptoms, exercise can improve your mental health, as well. Some of the most common forms of exercise used include:

There are certain exercises, such as yoga, physical training, swimming, rowing, and more, that are easier to do than others. Why exercise is so helpful is because it releases endorphins, the body’s feel-good hormone, which also acts as a natural painkiller.

Pain Management Specialists

No one deserves to live in chronic pain. It is debilitating and impacts not just physical health but your mental health, as well. Fortunately, there are several ways patients can find pain relief. Along with exercise, our Frisco pain management clinic offers pain management options such as ketamine infusion, regenerative medicine, and stem cell therapy. To learn more about your options, contact Texas Partners Healthcare Group today.