Chronic pain is one of the most common complaints I see in my practice, and honestly, in medicine as a whole. It doesn’t discriminate by age, and most of us will deal with at least one stretch of lasting pain at some point in our lives. Right now, chronic pain affects an estimated 100 million Americans — more than heart disease, diabetes, and cancer combined. It’s one of the biggest costs to our medical system, yet conventional medicine still offers surprisingly few effective options for real relief.
Here’s the good news: our understanding of where pain actually comes from has grown enormously in recent years, and that’s opened the door to new, non-drug, non-surgical therapies that genuinely help people manage pain and get their lives back.
I’m specially trained in non-pharmaceutical pain management, and I’d love to help you understand why you’re hurting and what you can do about it. Schedule an appointment today.
How I Approach Pain
Understanding why you hurt. This is where I always start with patients, because it’s the most foundational piece of the puzzle. Once you understand why you have pain and the mechanisms your body uses to create it, you gain real power — power to take back control of your pain, your activities, and your life.
Hands-on treatment in the office. Manual therapies are one of the most effective tools I use to reduce pain, improve everyday function and mobility, and speed up healing time.
Treating the mind and body together. Pain touches so many parts of our lives that it’s no surprise chronic pain often comes with anxiety, depression, or other mood changes. It can force us to cut back at work, give up hobbies we love, or change our daily routines — and that can bring on feelings of isolation, discouragement, or loss of control. Those feelings don’t just chip away at your quality of life; they’ve actually been shown to make pain worse. By addressing the body and the mind together, we can break that cycle of chronic pain feeding mood, and mood feeding pain.
Looking at the whole picture. As part of my whole-person approach to care, I assess every aspect of your health that might be contributing to your pain or getting in the way of proper healing. Depending on what you need, nutritional and herbal supplements can also play a helpful role in moderating pain and supporting recovery.
If you’re living with chronic pain, you don’t have to just manage it — you can understand it, and that changes everything. Schedule an appointment and let’s get started.
— Dr. Faith Christensen