Advice on dealing with pain?

[balsamandash]

So -- people who have issues with pain; what do you do to get yourself through bad pain periods? Particularly when you have work/physically demanding responsibilities that you can't skip or put off until pain is gone?

I have chronic/reoccuring pain of some kind in... practically every part of my body -- feet, legs, back, stomach, chest, hands, arms, shoulders, neck, jaw, temples, headaches, wow this list is worse than I expected when I actually write it out. It's been a particularly bad couple of weeks for it; I'm bad at quantifying pain but I'd say my average for this month is quite a bit worse than my average in general. I work on my feet all nigh, picking up and moving around heavy boxes and then doing repetitive motions that cause pain in my arms even on days there previously wasn't any.

And I am terrible at coping mechanisms or finding things to make the pain better. (Massage generally helps but is not something I have daily access to or anything right now. Being warm helps so I'm picking up something long-sleeved I can wear during work to keep myself from getting as chilly, but that only does so much good.)

So if you deal with anything like this, share what works for you? Either for getting through the period of having to do things or ways to help ease the pain after getting home/before leaving/when I happen to have a decent chunk of time? I would really appreciate the advice.

Comments

[mdlbear]

1. I have chronic back pain and occasional muscle cramps; heat, NSAIDs (I prefer naproxen, but YMMV), and on bad days prescription muscle relaxants all help. Also ethanol. The heat mainly comes from an electric heating pad, but a hot bath will get to things that the pad doesn't go near. For the occasional neck and shoulder pain I have a heating pad that kind of drapes over your shoulders and fastens in the front with a snap. This is all muscle stuff, so massage also works wonders.

2. My sister has fibromyalgia, but manages to hold down a job as a massage therapist. Partly that's because she can get massages herself at half price, and partly because she has some pretty awesome drugs. But also it's because on most days, as she puts it, "it's not going to hurt any more if I get up and do stuff." So she does.