Manage Chronic Pain with Weight Loss

August 28, 2022

If you struggle with chronic pain, you’ve probably tried easing it with a multitude of medications, therapies, and even surgery. If none of those methods reduces your pain, or if you’re looking for a way to manage your pain long-term, losing weight may help.

It can be difficult to keep up an active lifestyle with chronic pain, but by making small changes to promote weight loss, you improve your overall health while giving yourself the best fighting chance against chronic pain. Learn about how losing weight can help you with pain management and make a real difference in your quality of life.

More Energy

Energy levels are frequently linked to your diet and lifestyle choices. Excess weight requires excess energy and creates greater pressure on the body, so it’s no wonder that weight loss improves your surplus of energy. Greater energy leads to a more active lifestyle which, in turn, promotes making more healthy choices. To increase your energy, we recommend avoiding a diet full of processed foods, as these foods often cause inflammation in the body and trigger chronic pain. Likewise, if you notice certain foods lower your energy levels, or trigger your pain, make note of those foods and avoid them later on.

Better Quality of Life

Losing weight can give you a much better quality of life. For starters, chronic pain patients deal with joint pain and pressure, causing physical discomfort throughout the day. But excess weight affects more than just joints. Other vital systems (such as your respiratory, circulatory, and nervous systems) face increasing stress from excess weight. This stress can compromise comfort and ability across a wide range of life’s most enjoyable moments, from intimacy with a partner to the simple ability to take a walk. Losing weight has the opposite effect, boosting your capability and ultimate enjoyment throughout life.

Reduced Osteoarthritis

Losing weight is one of the most time-tested and effective ways to alleviate symptoms of osteoarthritis. By losing weight, you provide almost immediate relief to your joints, including your knees, ankles, and wrists.. It follows that when you feel better, you do more, further promoting an active lifestyle, sharper mental function, and better mental health. Losing weight also arrests the possibility of further joint damage down the line.

Less Musculoskeletal Pain

Musculoskeletal pain is a frustrating condition that causes body aches throughout the whole body or a specific area. The most common musculoskeletal conditions include carpal tunnel and tendonitis, causing pain during normal, daily activities. Weight loss can promote better sleep, ease pain, and significantly improve their quality of life. Exercising along with weight loss, can strengthen the affected muscles and can lead to a stronger, healthier body.

Improve Your Quality of Life with Weight Loss

Chronic pain has almost too many causes to count. Thankfully, losing weight is an ideal solution to so many of those causes. The real cost of chronic pain can’t be measured in joints, calories, or energy levels. Days lost to melancholy, immobility, and discomfort can never be had again. By making the commitment to lose weight, you are reclaiming days of comfortable, enjoyable living and preventing chronic pain from taking any more of your precious days in the future.

To learn more about pain management through weight loss, call Southside Pain Specialists. We’ll help you devise a plan of action with small, accomplishable goals that are easy to understand and aspire toward. Don’t let chronic pain rob you of another valuable day. Get on the path to discovery and take back your life.

Manage Pain with Southside Pain Specialists

With highly specialized training and a multitude of pain relief options, Southside Pain Specialists follow the standards of the American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians, The American Board of Pain Medicine, and the International Spinal Injection Society. We work hard to provide patients with comprehensive, caring pain relief when they need it most. Check out our website or contact us today at 205.881.0127 to learn more.