Chronic pain: Why you shouldn't ignore it

Remember your gruff PE teacher's advice for treating an injury? "Just walk it off."

Hopefully today’s games teachers are better informed as that kind of approach could be downright dangerous for serious pain.

Statistics for chronic pain are difficult to pin down depending on the definitions used. Experts at The British Pain Society say chronic pain affects somewhere between 8% and 60% of the population. Severe pain is estimated to affect 11% of adults. So why can't we find relief?

Some people get the wrong diagnosis from their GP. Others never seek help because they just get used to the pain. Or they assume that pain is inevitable, like grey hair, and don't bother fighting it.

However, you should never settle for chronic pain. You shouldn't have to.

"Pain is the body's red alert", says neurologist Dr Anne Louise Oaklander. "You must always listen to it."

Although pain treatment was once more of an afterthought -- as doctors focused only on treating the underlying cause -- pain management is becoming an important part of medical care. In other words, pain isn't just a symptom of something else: It's a condition that needs to be treated.

What is chronic pain?

Pain is considered chronic when it has lasted for more than six months and when it significantly affects your home or work life.

The most common types of pain are:

• Migraines and other headaches
• Lower back pain
• Joint pain and stiffness from arthritis and other conditions

Another common cause of chronic pain is nerve pain, the result of conditions such as diabetes and shingles.

The effects of chronic pain vary from minor to catastrophic. Chronic pain is much more than just the sensation of pain. It seeps into the rest of your life. It can keep you awake at night, leaving you exhausted. It disrupts your family life. It can affect your work -- or even prevent you from working at all.

Ideally, pain is meant to be felt briefly. That stinging, aching or throbbing sends helpful messages, like "drop that red-hot saucepan handle" or "remove your hand from the wasps’ nest." After a while, it goes away.

However, some pain doesn't. All it takes is an injury that doesn't heal correctly, or joint deterioration, or nerve damage, and the pain-signalling system breaks down. Your pain isn't giving you a helpful message anymore -- it just hurts.

If you have chronic pain, your instincts may work against you. If your knee hurts when you walk, you naturally want to walk less, but if you walk less, your muscles can weaken. The fatigue that comes with pain can immobilise you, causing weight gain and worsening physical health. Sometimes, exercising through chronic pain -- under a doctor's supervision, of course -- is the only way to decrease it. So, in this case, your PE teacher may have been right. In this particular instance, walking it off might be just what the doctor ordered.