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When and Where?
Meetings are held on the 1st and 3rd Thursday of every month at the Hope Therapy Center. To get directions please click here.
What is Acute Pain?
- Caused by tissue damage.
- Accompanies injury, illness, or surgery.
- Can last for weeks up to 6 months.
- Has limited duration and known cause.
- Serves as a warning symptom that tells us to get help.
What is Chronic Pain?
- Lasts longer than 6 months and is the result of multiple mechanisms not fully understood.
- Can be present following an injury or without specific injury.
- Original injury may be healed, but pain remains and may intensify.
- Chronic pain is a complex warning system gone awry.
What can you do?
Chronic pain is a personal experience and everyone experiences pain differently. The only one who fully understands what you are feeling is you. Chronic pain is also a multi-dimensional problem. It is affected by a variety of factors, including your perceptions, beliefs, attitudes, behaviors, and moods. When our pain system is overloaded, it can cause additional symptoms, such as fatigue, muscle tension, and insomnia. Persistent pain is often frustrating, difficult to treat, and may linger despite medication, injections, and trips to the doctor. It is usually not possible to make chronic pain disappear completely, but we can learn how to manage it. In fact, we can learn to develop a good quality of life despite chronic pain. Our lifestyle choices—what we do or don’t do—can affect our pain level. Doing too much or too little often increases our pain. The goal of pain management is to learn to keep pain at a tolerable level, allowing you to focus on everyday activities. In other words, the goal is to minimize your pain while maximizing your function.
How can I find out more?
For additional details, contact group facilitator Howard Belon, Ph.D. at 970-339-0044
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