Does Chronic Pain Go Away?

Is Chronic Pain Forever?

Pain itself is not really a condition but is most often a symptom of some underlying injury or illness. In most cases, this pain — what is known as acute pain — goes away after your injury or illness has healed. If it doesn’t go away, and the pain only becomes more intense with time, you may instead be suffering from chronic pain.

If you’ve been suffering from chronic pain for an especially long time, your symptoms may be wearing on you. You may find yourself wondering if chronic pain goes away in time.

Will My Chronic Pain Ever End?

Unfortunately, not really, no. Because of the way we determine a word’s medical terminology, chronic pain is any pain that lasts longer than 3 months.

As said by WebMD, “someone who has had ongoing back pain for 18 years shouldn’t expect that after a few visits to a pain doctor they’ll be cured.”

This does not mean that the future of chronic pain is bleak. In fact, there are lots of treatment options that can help you find relief from your symptoms and allow you to regain a sense of normalcy, even if your pain can’t be “cured” in the traditional manner of thinking.

What Are The Symptoms And Causes Of Chronic Pain?

Pain might be the obvious answer, but it’s not the most thorough or even correct way to put it. The truth is, pain can feel a lot different depending on where you’re hurt, what hurts you, etc. So, too, does chronic pain shift and take different forms depending on a number of factors.

Chronic pain commonly manifests itself as some of the following, for instance:

• Headaches
• Lower back pain
• Post-surgical pain
• Post-trauma or post-injury pain

The pain itself can feel like any of the following:

• Aching
• Throbbing
• Shooting
• Burning
• Squeezing
• Stinging
• A general soreness or stiffness

Non-pain related symptoms include some of the following:

• Fatigue or feeling very tired
• Loss of appetite
• Disturbances in sleep patterns
• Changes in moods
• A general lack of energy or motivation

Chronic pain does not have anyone single cause or risk factor — in fact, sometimes it comes about for no apparent reason at all. Chronic pain can also be a result of an underlying medical condition, like the following:

• Cancer
• Arthritis
• Neuropathy
• Chronic fatigue syndrome
• Endometriosis
• Fibromyalgia
• Inflammatory bowel disease
• Interstitial cystitis
• Temporomandibular joint dysfunction (TMJ)

How Can You Treat Chronic Pain?

Chronic pain does not go away, but you can find relief with the right treatment options and lifestyle changes. The primary focus is to reduce levels of pain and boost your ability to move around like normal again.

One promising new treatment is the use of therapeutic ketamine infusions. Ketamine has been used as a pain reliever for decades, but new research is showing it can be useful for the treatment of chronic pain conditions as well.