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Alina Freiberger

Prof. Loudermilk

English Composition II

April 12, 2021

What are other ways to combat chronic pain without the use of prescription medications?

One of the best natural alert systems in the body is pain. Pain allows the body to know

that something isn’t right or whatever is causing the pain needs to stop. Pain can be categorized

into two different types, acute pain and chronic pain. Acute pain is the pain that happens right

after the body gets injured and will usually go away after a short amount of time. Chronic pain is

a pain that lasts for longer than 3 months and can sometimes be incurable. Whilst there isn’t a

cure for chronic pain, Are ways to manage chronic pain without the use of prescription

medication? What are they?

To know the answer to this question, one must go into the history of pain management to

understand why prescription medications are not the best route when it comes to chronic pain

management. In the 1600’s opium was prescribed by doctors to help treat pain. Chloroform and

ether were then introduced in the 1800’s to put patients to sleep during surgery. By the 1900’s

morphine and heroin were added to the list of medications to help with pain. With these new

medications “it was the start of doctors being torn between wanting to improve the quality of

their patients’ lives, while fearing the treatment would make people vulnerable to addictions”

(Collier). It was also around this time when people began to realize that chronic pain was a thing

and these addictive medications were not the best for patients suffering with chronic pain. These

patients were referred to psychotherapy or neurosurgery. As time went on doctors ignored the

addiction worry and in the 1970’s and 1980’s doctors prescribed a large amount of opium and
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other addictive drugs to patients with “long-term, non-cancer pain” (Collier). This led to a drug

epidemic which caused lots of problems with addiction that affects people today. Flashforward to

today and people are wanting ways to help manage their chronic pain without the use of

extremely addictive opioid medication allowing people to ask the question stated earlier in the

paper.

One idea to manage chronic pain without the use of prescription medication is exercise. It

sounds backwards when said. However when it comes to chronic pain, consistent exercise

combats the cycle of pain. A study done in 2015 shows that after consistent core exercises 3

times a week for 6 weeks has improved the level of pain in patients participating in the study.

(Tarun, Suraj)

Another idea that goes along with exercise for chronic pain management is physical

therapy. There are many types of physical therapies and the different types can help with

different types of chronic pain issues (Coronado).

A third type of chronic pain treatment is acupuncture. Patients with chronic back pain

were recruited to try an acupuncture session along with their normal treatment. The ones who

ended up going along with it ended up “very satisfied” with the results of the acupuncture. (Liu,

Lizhou).

One final type of chronic pain treatment is music. A study done in 2020 on female

Fibromyalgia patients had them sit in a quiet room listening to classical music. Their pain was

rated before and after listening to the music and the results showed that the pain level dropped

significantly after listening to music. (Usui, Chie).

A really good answer to the question: What are other ways to combat chronic pain

without the use of prescription medication? There are several. The answers such as physical
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therapy go into a lot of depth and have a lot of different options on their own that need to be

brought up. There are also a lot of meditation techniques that go in with acupuncture, along with

the question of if other genres of music help with pain and not just classical? There are a lot of

ways to help combat chronic pain without the use of prescription medication.
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Works Cited

Collier, Roger. “A short history of pain management.” CMAJ : Canadian Medical Association

journal = journal de l'Association médicale canadienne vol. 190,1 (2018): E26-E27.

doi:10.1503/cmaj.109-5523

Coronado, Rogelio A, and Joel E Bialosky. “Manual physical therapy for chronic pain: the

complex whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” The Journal of manual &

manipulative therapy vol. 25,3 (2017): 115-117. doi:10.1080/10669817.2017.1309344

Kumar, Tarun, et al. “Efficacy of Core Muscle Strengthening Exercise in Chronic Low Back

Pain Patients.”

Journal of Back & Musculoskeletal Rehabilitation, vol. 28, no. 4, Oct. 2015, pp. 699–

707.

EBSCOhost, doi:10.3233/BMR-140572

Liu, Lizhou, et al. “Acupuncture for Chronic Low Back Pain: A Randomized Controlled

Feasibility Trial Comparing Treatment Session Numbers.” Clinical Rehabilitation, vol.

31, no. 12, Dec. 2017, pp. 1592–1603. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1177/0269215517705690

Usui, Chie, et al. “Music Intervention Reduces Persistent Fibromyalgia Pain and Alters

Functional Connectivity Between the Insula and Default Mode Network.” Pain Medicine,

vol. 21, no. 8, Aug. 2020, pp. 1546–1552. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1093/pm/pnaa071

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