Chronic Pain - Are there any answers?

Chronic musculoskeletal pain affects millions of people and has now become a problem of epidemic proportions. Globally people are suffering and searching for solutions, however neither conventional nor alternative medicine seems to offer a definitive solution to resolving it.

* In 2008 The American Pain Foundation reported that at some point in their lives 80% of all people living in North America and Europe will suffer from disabling chronic foot, knee, hip, back or neck pain.


*The European Journal of Pain conducted a large cross-sectional survey of 46,000 subjects in 15 European countries and Israel in 2006 and found similar facts to those in the United States. Nineteen percent of survey respondents had chronic pain (an intensity of pain 5 or greater on a 10-point scale). Twenty-six percent of chronic pain patients reported an impact on their employment, and of those, 19% had lost their jobs.



* Medications are used by millions of chronic pain sufferers across the globe. In the UK, £3.8 billion are spent annually just to treat chronic pain in teenagers.


* Studies show that long term use of over-the-counter medications such as aspirin, ibuprofen, naproxen and ketoprofen can lead to gastrointestinal complications such as ulcers, gastrointestinal bleeding or perforation of the stomach.


The problem with many current treatments and therapies for chronic musculoskeletal pain is that they do not address the source of the pain. As with anything in life, without addressing the source of a problem, it is impossible to find a real and permanent solution.


There are types of pain where the source is known, and hence there are treatments to eliminate it. Examples of this are back pain from a severe fracture in a vertebrae, for which surgery can be used to fix the fracture and eliminate the pain, or back pain from a bladder infection, which can be remedied with antibiotics. However these types of pain are not chronic, as they exist for a short period of time.

There are however many cases where the source of pain is not known and pain sufferers have been told that their only option is to manage their pain. This pain is ongoing and hence is considered chronic. Current treatments for chronic musculoskeletal pain may effectively manage symptoms temporarily, but because the source of the pain is not being addressed, the pain inevitably returns.


At Health Plus Clinics we have a range of therapies which may help with chronic pain. All our practitioners only accept patients if there is a substantial chance of success.