There are two types of pain: acute and chronic. We have no control over acute pain, which is evoked from acute injury or illness. Chronic pain, however, is under our own control, but is not understood by modern medicine. It is believed that chronic pain is a complex mixture of emotions, culture, experience, spirit and sensation. Scientists on the forefront of pain management are delving into the possibly that chronic pain is a function of the brain’s memory of damaged nerves rather than the original injury

Try yoga
Practice yoga to manage chronic pain. Yoga is believed to be effective in the management of chronic pain. Studies have shown that persons who practice yoga use analgesics less frequently and have fewer mental symptoms, such as anxiety and depression, than those who do not participate in yoga as a therapy.

Use Local Analgesics
Apply natural, topical analgesics. Topical medications are ointments that are applied to the skin, such as creams or gels or oils. They can reduce pain that is just below the surface of the skin. Ointments containing lidocaine and prilocaine are particularly effective in numbing pain on the surface of the body, such as neuralgia, shingles and joint pain.

Try Hypnosis
Consider hypnosis. Increasingly, it is suspected that chronic pain can be attributed to brain malfunction, or the memory of pain that no longer exists. Scientists are studying the fact that the brain may even cause pain by sending pain signals to nerve endings where no injury exists. Hypnosis is being investigated as a cure for this type of malfunction and curing the pain that goes along with it.

Apply Heat
Applying heat can reduce pain specially when it is muscle pain

Apply cold
If you can’t bear the heat, try applying ice or a cold compress, it will reduce the sensation of pain.

Try Massage
Massaging the area can take most of the pain away

Try some rest
Getting sufficient rest can heal muscle and joint pain. Specially works for back pain.

Use biofeedback
Biofeedback teaches you how to gain partial control over certain physiological processes.
Biofeedback is a non-medical process that involves measuring a subject’s specific and quantifiable bodily functions such as blood pressure, heart rate, skin temperature, sweat gland activity, and muscle tension, conveying the information to the patient in real-time. This raises the patient’s awareness and therefore the possibility of conscious control of those functions.

Give me your own techniques to lesser pain in the comments !

Earlier this year, new official guidance said that patients with persistent lower back pain should be offered acupuncture on the NHS. The recommendation, from the NHS rationing body NICE, said that the scientific evidence now showed that acupuncture was not only effective at treating back pain, but also cost effective when other treatments, such as painkillers, were found not to be working.

Up to now, the scientific rationalists among us would have had grounds for pooh-poohing all this as unproved, pricey pampering. But that’s all changed. Science has suddenly — and very publicly — taken a turn in favour of the needle.

The new guidance came from a report from the influential medical research review body ‘the Cochrane Collaboration’, saying that headache and migraine sufferers clearly fared better with acupuncture than painkillers. In addition, a large scientific review found that women undergoing fertility treatment were more likely to give birth successfully if they had acupuncture.

Not everyone believes it works

The short answer is that Acupuncture does work — for head and back pain. But for everything else, it depends on whom you talk to. And many Doctors are still sceptic.

Professor Edzard Ernst, chair of complementary therapy at Exeter and Plymouth universities, is doubtful. He says that you need to study the effects on thousands of people before you can say “this works” or recommend that people should pay for a treatment. In addition, he doesn’t buy the supposed evidence on fertility.

One of his worries is whether acupuncture actually has any effect on the body, or whether it’s simply a glorified “placebo” — a treatment that makes us feel better simply because we expect to be made better. If it is just a trick of the light, should the NHS — or anyone — be paying for it?

The evidence that it works is there but sham acupuncture works as well
In fact, pretty strong evidence that acupuncture kills pain and helps nausea sufferers.

At the same time , administering “sham” acupuncture — where needles are inserted into the wrong place, or aren’t pushed in properly, or toothpicks are applied to the skin instead — often seem to have the same effect. To the sceptics, this suggests that acupuncture doesn’t actually have a curative effect: it just cons people into feeling well.

The concept behind the needles
Acupuncture brings a real neurophysiological response, which is more than placebo. Touching, pressure, pointing to where the pain is all have an effect, and you can measure their effects in the nervous system.

The idea of energy in acupuncture is a huge concept. But basically inserting a needle provokes an electrical and biochemical response which promotes communication between cells. It’s been shown that it ignites the brain with electrical lights.

It’s all about costs
So why did the NHS introduce Acunpucture ? Better it’s cost effective. First, not everyone will be able to get treatment. Second the costs to the NHS would be minimal – in the order of £77,000 – because they are offset by the savings in terms of reducing future disability and healthcare needs and moving away from treatments with little supportive evidence.

The guidelines, which apply to England and Wales, say doctors should no longer offer spinal x-rays or MRI scans or injections of therapeutic substances into the back for non-specific low back pain.

The Chartered Society of Physiotherapy welcomed the guidelines, as did Dr Dries Hettinga of the charity BackCare. He said: “This offers a real choice for patients.
“This guideline will help patients understand what treatment and care can help them with their back pain and shows that there can be a positive outlook for treating this condition.”

Conclusion
Proof is a hard thing to come by for any treatment, and acupuncture is going to take longer than most to crack. In the meantime, spending your painkiller cash on a relaxing acupuncture session doesn’t seem such a stupid move. Try it !