[Closed] meditation for pain management

Probably depends on the pain and the cause of it. Personally I'm always with treat the cause not the symptoms so really depends what that is.

Might I suggest Rule 5, princess?

that is the type of answer i wanted tom. cheers 😆

hospital sent me home with paracetamol and dihydrocodeine. and they appear pretty useless so far.

i have some tramodol. will i die if i take them instead?

probably at some point, what's causing the pain? Is it movement or just sitting there?

worse when sitting. doing my exercises and hurts then too pretty bad.

might slip the odd tramodol into the mix.

I get a fair bit of pain from my arthritis, especially this time of year. I find practising mindfulness and meditation can help. It's about learning to see the pain as just something that is happening, not obsessing about making it go away. More managing the anxiety related to the pain, which makes the pain itself easier to deal with.
Sounds a bit pretentious written down and obviously this isn't a recommendation of mediation as an alternative to medicines and "conventional" treatments, more as a complementary method of "filling the gaps" that painkillers and exercises might not deal with completely.

Distracting from the pain by concentrating on some activity / work / etc. I find sort of works. I just live with it best I can then, and hope it's short term.

Depends on the pain though. Back break and they loaded me up with Codeine & Tramadol, plus Paracetamol, but I managed it mainly with Paracetamol and just getting on with things.

Now in loads of dental pain and really frustrating. Painkillers not so effective. Doing stuff takes my mind off the pain for an hour or so though until the drugs are wearing off enough to get really annoying, then still have couple of hours before I can take more.

[img] [/img]

https://www.glenfiddich.com/explore/experimental-ipa

If I've told you once............................

just had to use a suppository to clear a codeine induced backlog.
it took my mind off the pain for half an hour......... 😆

A lot of people who live chronic pain get excellent results from mindfulness meditation, it is certainly an avenue worth exploring. Generally it's the people who embrace it the most enthusiastically who achieve the greatest level of pain relief (unsurprisingly!).

Other non-pharmaceutical pain relief options include (in no particular order):
Hot and cold packs
TENS machines
Cognitive behavioural therapy (yes, it works for chronic pain too!)
Acupuncture
Massage
Moderate exercise

And, as above, any activity that interests you! It both distracts you from the pain in the short term as well as reinforcing your mental resiliance, as you are proving to yourself that you are able to live your life despite the pain. It can be a very powerful thing in fact! 🙂

Ton - a surprising percentage of people are not helped by opioids at all. Something like 10% from what I remember. If you are in that “lucky” group, tramadol will help you no more than DHC.

You should check out https://www.paintoolkit.org/ as there are an awful lot of useful ways to manage pain there. It is more aimed as chronic pain sufferers but I don’t know if that applies to your current situation?

Rachel

try mindfulness
If it is a chronic issue you might want to buy the book or audiobook of
[url= https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mindfulness-Health-practical-relieving-restoring/dp/074995924X ]this[/url]

Battled with chronic pain for some years - various bike accidents, buggered up surgery and breaking my spine two years ago. The back pain is the worse. I try and avoid pain killers as much as possible, only resorting to them when really needed. Last few weeks haven't been great with the cold and damp, and I'm actually off work dosed up on codeine today as I was in agony overnight. Did a 'little too much' yesterday - a simple hour's pressure washing moss off the path, nothing strenuous, but constant bending did it.

I've not found 'mindfulness' that helpful.

As mentioned above Ton ..depending on where the problem is ..ice packs /tens machine can help a lot whilst awaiting next painkiller allowance.

Tramadol.... If you have some try it. It can relax your muscles and stop any spasms.

Opioids don't work for me. Had one tramadol after surgery and it gave me scary hallucinations!
Pain does have a psychological component. I have frequent migraines and was at the end of my rag with them. but about 15 months ago I asked my counsellor if he could help with the psychological bit. Not sure how he managed it, but the result was that I gave up the fight for finding a treatment and the frustration went with it. Migraines have been less severe and less frequent since then.

Opioids don't work for me. Had one tramadol after surgery and it gave me scary hallucinations!

You got any left? Sound like my kinda tablets.

the result was that I gave up the fight for finding a treatment and the frustration went with it.

This^

This is what meditation and mindfulness has helped me to do.

Blimey ton. They sent my Mum home with oramorph. That probably is in part because she doesn't get on well with codeine and partly because for medical reason she had to keep moving. It's major surgery and I can see mindfulness working for some chronic pain but not sure in this immediate instance. I'd phone your GP for something stronger.

Good luck with it.

There are alternatives, there was an article recently about natural painkillers getting good results, things such as capsicum cream, worth investigating.

Can sympathise, i broke shoulder and had metal pins and stuck brake lever through my thigh in an accident in Bolivia, by the end of it the stomach problems and constipation from the codamol far outweighed any pain i was suffering.

I'd phone your GP for something stronger.

Morphine patches worked for me for a bit. The mildest dose keeps you sharp enough to function (it did for me - talking power tools n stuff).

Matrifen in a 12 microgram dose is lowest but you can get stronger if they don't work. The idea is to keep a steady flow of the drug in your blood so as to avoid pain relief delay.

i have now ditched the codeine tablets. paracetamol through the day and a couple of tramadol prior to bed to help me nod off.

i thinkmymoaning about the pain was just the initial shock. the pain now is like i have been battered playing rugby. a nice constant ache rather than sharp nasty pain.

onwards and upwards. hopefully

Fingers crossed for you Ton.

Nice work! Keep chipping away at it, sounds like you're doing good stuff there 🙂

Chin up big lad ! it will get easier by the day , big operation after all, try and stay clear of morphine it can send you doo- lally, Mart

I will check out the name of the 'pain patches' I use sometimes. I think they are basically a local aesthetic patch but they give good, if short term, local pain relief for my ankle.

They are about the size of an A5 sheet of paper, made of a foam/cloth like material and you just stick them to whichever part of your body you like. A lovely cooling feeling when first applied and then a general reduction in pain.

No obvious side effects for me unlike the tramadol/tamazapan / Dihidrochloride cocktail I was using which didn't seem to reduce the pain but made me so dopey that I just didn't care about it.

Try chanting

Nplus1 nplus1 nplus1 nplus1 nplus1 nplus1 nplus1 nplus1 .....

:DWife on top!might provide a bit of a distraction.You might feel better as well.

@Ton Have you tried a healing egg?

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Some folk swear by them 😉