15 Mar Why Restoring Lost Function Is a Priority for Us
The pain medicine specialists here at Lone Star Pain Medicine work with patients to assist them find much needed pain relief. But one other one in all our priorities is restoring lost function. Restoration is essential to us as pain relief is to our patients. Why? Because we all know the hidden dangers of losing function and never getting it back.
Our doctors treat pain attributable to a protracted list of conditions. We see patients affected by back pain, shoulder and neck pain, sports injuries, migraine and severe headaches, and even cancer-related pain. And in so many cases, patients have either lost significant function or are on the verge of losing it. We hate to see that occur.
Lack of Function Affects Each day Life
A lack of function in any body part affects each day life. Imagine a patient with arthritic knees. If the pain is serious enough to be uncomfortable, the patient may avoid walking. Right there may be a lack of function. How does that affect the patient’s each day life? It encourages the patient to be largely sedentary. That is just not good. A sedentary lifestyle can result in all styles of things including obesity and hypertension.
Likewise, a patient affected by debilitating shoulder pain may determine not to make use of the affected arm. Perhaps that doesn’t sound bad, a minimum of until you truly should get used to living life with one working arm. Suddenly you’re taking the incontrovertible fact that you will have two arms more seriously. Life with only one isn’t really easy.
Lack of Function Affects Quality of Life
Along with making life tougher, a lack of function can affect an individual’s quality of life. Allow us to return to the instance of osteoarthritis within the knees. Imagine being a golfer who step by step finds playing the sport tougher due to knee pain. If a lack of function prevents you from playing, your golf clubs may find yourself gathering dust within the garage. A game that you just loved is now out of reach.
Lack of function will also be a contributing think about developing mental health issues. And as we all know, mental health issues can negatively impact an individual’s quality of life. Whether the lack of function is as a consequence of arthritis, frozen shoulder, or lingering back pain matters little. What matters is on the patient is struggling to live a full and vibrant life.
It Only Gets Worse
The icing on the proverbial cake is just not excellent news. Here it’s – failing to revive a lack of function almost at all times means it only gets worse. Once more, allow us to return to the knee arthritis example. If knee pain causes an individual to voluntarily limit mobility, that person creates additional problems for himself.
Spending an excessive amount of time sitting down causes the leg muscles to lose mass and strength. Likewise for the tendons and ligaments holding all the things together. This results in weakness within the knee joints. The weaker the joints are, the more serious the arthritic condition becomes. Over time, limiting mobility only makes moving around tougher. Voluntarily limiting mobility creates a vicious cycle wherein the patient moves less, hurts more, and further limits his mobility.
We don’t want to go away this post on a sour note. We wish you to know that, no matter the basis explanation for your chronic pain, there are treatments and therapies able to relieving that pain and restoring lost function. It is necessary that any lost function be addressed. Otherwise, things only worsen.
And now you understand why restoring lost function is a top priority here at Lone Star Pain Medicine.
