Illness is an inevitable part of life. But when it becomes prolonged, debilitating, and endures no cure throughout life, it turns into long-term or chronic illness. Chronic health conditions develop due to infections, external injuries, autoimmune defects, psychological abnormalities, genetic susceptibility, or cellular degeneration. Asthma, cancer, arthritis, diabetes, and other chronic diseases result from multiple influences on health, including age, lifestyle choices, or low resources.
During a long illness, pain, fatigue, stress, depression, and physical changes in the body may affect daily life. All these symptoms can influence the ability to work and increase your dependency on others. As these problems persist for an entire life, you can either succumb to desperation or control your life by coping with the disease. If you choose the latter, here are five revolutionary paths that can help you manage illness to provide a healthier life.
1. Coordinating With The Healthcare Team
Long-term illness may lead to multiple health problems. It means you have to consult and undergo treatment of several healthcare professionals. As transparency in treatment is mandatory, provide accurate information about your medical history and what treatment you are currently having.
You can also manage your healthcare by giving consent to all medical professionals to coordinate among themselves. By this, they can get thorough details about your health. It will help them understand your problem, chalk out a specific treatment plan, and track improvement. For better coordination, appoint a single doctor as a point-of-contact who can have access to all tests, medicines, therapies, diet management, and other vital information regarding your health.
2. Taking Care Of Mental Health
For millions of people, chronic diseases and mental health problems are co-occurring illnesses. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports, almost 17% of patients with cardiovascular diseases, 27% of diabetes cases, and 40% of cancer patients suffer from depression. Limiting life and constant ailment adds to anxiety and stress and leads to severe psychological trauma.
Talk to your friends and engage in things you love like, reading, gardening, walking, and others. Join a support group to share personal experiences and prepare definite coping strategies. You can also try learning new skills that will make you busy for a considerable time. Acquire knowledge regarding your health, possible outcomes, and treatments. Remember, it is always better to get help from therapists or counselors when you see the slightest symptoms of depression. Reach out to your doctor for medical support for your mental health problems.
3. Get Support
Long-term health problems require dependable social connections—patients with limited social networks and inadequate social and emotional support report poor disease management. Be honest and let your friends, family, and other closed ones know about your conditions. Inform them how they can help you and try to keep in contact with them regularly. Ask your family to drop-in frequently so that you can have a relaxing and happy time to spend with them. You can also join clubs, hobby classes, and volunteering services to keep yourself occupied and distant from any negative thoughts and begin working with experts at Aayu Clinics.
4. Pain Management
Chronic illness often sees multiple and simultaneous health problems. But one persistent issue is quite common in 60 percent of patients, that is, chronic pain. The majority of such people suffer from severe hip, back, or knee pain, often followed by improper body functioning. Nearly 70 percent of patients turn towards prescribed medication, like morphine, or antidepressant, like Amitriptyline to reduce pain. Almost 50 percent of people manage pain by relaxing, resting, and by changing their lifestyles. Some patients depend on exercises, therapies, massages, and acupuncture for pain management.
Recently, more people are turning towards CBD for reducing chronic pain and treating the underlying conditions that trigger it. CBD or cannabidiol is a non-psychoactive cannabinoid found in hemp plants. This compound has the potential to treat several health issues, including inflammation and pain. You may opt for CBD capsules to help you sleep, by reducing pain and providing relaxation during illness. However, whatever treatment options you choose from, take advice from your doctor to avoid setbacks.
Ketamine is also used to treat various chronic pain syndromes, especially those that have a neuropathic component. Low dose ketamine produces strong analgesia in neuropathic pain states, presumably by inhibition of the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor although other mechanisms are possibly involved, including enhancement of descending inhibition and anti-inflammatory effects at central sites.
Recently, there has been new research illuminating how ketamine infusions have been beneficial for the treatment of fibromyalgia. In one study, treatment with ketamine reduced a patient’s pain by 50% in more than half of the study participants. It is thought that ketamine reduces the central nervous system sensitization associated with increased pain in fibromyalgia. Ketamine also reduces the activity of glutamate, the main excitatory neurotransmitter in the brain. Treatment ketamine for chronic pain requires significantly higher doses of ketamine with infusions of much longer duration (2-3 hours) which you can schedule at balanceketamine.com
5. Bring Positive Lifestyle Changes
Specific changes in diet and lifestyle are likely to benefit patients with chronic diseases. Undoubtedly, a part of treatment involves avoiding tobacco use, maintaining a healthy weight, and exercising. Having a balanced diet also have positive health implications. Making simple changes in meals like taking low sodium foods, replacing saturated with unsaturated fats, and limiting sugar can control obesity, diabetes, coronary artery disease, and other chronic illness.
Apart from diet, studies show insufficient sleep increases the risk of many chronic diseases. Getting adequate and quality sleep can improve physical and mental health. A change in routine, including getting into bed early, avoiding caffeine before bedtime, and avoiding bright screens before sleep, can promote a good sleep cycle necessary to improve health conditions. Sudden changes in lifestyle may seem complicated, but taking baby steps can help to cope with your illness in the long run.
Conclusion
Managing a long illness is challenging. It can cause consistent physical and mental agony. Moreover, it requires a lot of patience and tolerance to deal with adverse health conditions. As chronic diseases have no cure, you can only manage it efficiently by changing your attitude towards it. While coping, worry less about what you couldn’t change and focus on investing in yourself. When it comes to managing your health, a small change in self-care routine can make a huge difference.
References:
https://www.webmd.com/pain-management/coping-strategies_for-chronic-illness#1
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2709743/
https://www.webmd.com/depression/guide/chronic-illnesses-depression#2
