At times the pain body experiences have a purpose, it alerts us that we have developed an injury, sprained an ankle, or something else. But, for some people pain stays for weeks or even months after the injury, causing them unnecessary suffering and becoming a barrier to a good quality of life.
If you think your pain has overstayed its welcome, may sure you understand that there are more treatment options available today for pain relief than there ever were before. Medication and other invasion procedures are no more the only way to gain some relief from the pain. With times new techniques, therapies, and even medical devices are coming through with the promise of helping people with different medical conditions and types of pain.
Here we have listed some plain relief techniques and smart wearable devices that help control and reduce your pain without needing an invasive procedure or taking any medication.
Smart wearables
Wearable technology in combination with digital advancement offer many opportunities for non-invasive pain management. The muscle stimulation devices can offer long-term pain relief benefits and comfort against the counter pain medications. The following are a few devices that offer drug-free pain relief they provide the solution against the temporary effects of pain medications.
Oska Pulse
This wearable device uses pulsed electromagnetic field (PEMF) technology that generates energy at various wavelengths and stimulate the body’s natural healing process. This technology is increasingly being used in several medical settings such as post-surgical healing and cancer treatment. PEMF technology is known to reduce pain in the lower back, feet, knees, and more. Besides, Oska Pulse work locally. It means that you can place the device almost anywhere on your body and it reduces inflammation and increase blood flow in the area, encouraging cellular repair.
Quell relief
This is yet another transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation TENS unit, a battery-operated device that is used to treat pain. However, unlike many other small patch-like wearables, Quell relief device is designed work like a small cuff that you can wear on your legs or arms. People who face knee or elbow pain and are looking for some pain relief options can conveniently use this wearable tech product.
Cefaly
This is a prescription-only device designed to treat migraine. Cefaly uses external trigeminal nerve stimulation e-TNS technology to either help patients relieve migraine pain or prevent the migraine pain from happening. It is a self-adhesive device that you are supposed to wear between your eyes, while it aims to intercept the pain signals along the nerve. The trigeminal nerve is the largest cranial nerve, which transmit sensory information like pain to your brain. Cefaly uses this to help control and manage migraine.
Other pain relief techniques
Whether you are looking for some car accident pain management solutions, post sport injury pain, or any other reason, there are many kinds of pain relief techniques, methods, and therapies that can help you. The following are some of these techniques that you can practice for pain relief and management that can work very well for different types of pain.
Cold and heat
This might be two of the most tried methods for relieving pain for some specific kinds of injuries. However, in case the home made cold and hot pack doesn’t work, you can always ask a physical therapist or chiropractor for their versions of these treatments and they may be able to penetrate into the tissues and muscle.
Physical therapy and occupational therapy
These two therapies often work wonders when it comes to fighting pain. Physical therapy involves a series of exercises that are designed to improve and preserve your strength and mobility against the pain. Whereas, occupational therapy refers to learning to perform many everyday activities in a specific way that they don’t aggravate your pain.
Mind-body techniques
This method includes many activities like meditation, breathing exercises, and mindfulness. They help you restore your sense of control over your body, relax muscles, and prevent chronic muscle tension and pain from worsening.
Yoga and tai chi
Adopting these two exercise practices involve breath control, meditation, and gentle physical movements to stretch and strengthen the muscles. They can be very effective in car chronic and car accident pain management as well as many other conditions like headaches and arthritis.
Music therapy
For many people music helps relieve their pain during as well as after any surgery and childbirth. Classic music seems to work especially well for people, but you can try any genre of music that you like or makes you feel peaceful. It can distract you from feeling the severity of the pain or discomfort.
Therapeutic massage
Massages can be much more than just an indulgence. It can ease your pain by relaxing and working tension out of the muscles and joints. Therapeutic massages can be great for relieving stress and anxiety and they can also distract you from feeling the pain by bringing new sensations that override the pain signals.
Biofeedback
This pain relief technique involves learning breathing and relaxation exercises with the assistance of biofeedback machine. The device shows physiological data like your heart rate and blood pressure as visual cues like a blinking light, graph, or even animation. Having real-time information to how your body is reacting to different stimulation, can help you gain some sense of control on your body’s response to pain.
Non-invasive pain relief solutions
Today, there definitely more options available to treat your pain and better than that to actually gain some control or manage your pain, without invasive medical procedures. However, along with some of the more commonly known pain relief techniques like cold or hot method, phenomena like music therapy, biofeedback therapy and others are also coming through as feasible pain management techniques. That said, with advancement of technology and smart wearables, it is likely to say that we will get to witness more development in this e-healthcare industry. The integration of digital technology and medical devices has various implications and possible uses that still need to be discovered and made available for the masses.