What Is Cbt?

By Author: Thomas Strickland
Total Articles: 102
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What is the best treatment to relieve pain for the individual patient if you rule out drugs as painkillers? "What?" you exclaim in shock. "Rule out painkillers?" Well, let's just think about this for a moment. Every pill has a dollar cost and, if you want to take pills for the next few years, the amount of dollars will mount up quickly. Second, if you keep on taking the same pill day-in day-out, your body slowly builds up tolerance. After a while, the pills are less effective. This gives you the hard choice. Either you increase the dosage which increases your cost and may lead to dependence, or you find an alternative. If the alternative is another pill, you are in the same trap.

So the ideal strategy is to give you the mental tools to cope without the need for pills. This may be coping with less drugs in your body. Or it may be quitting altogether. You may not like the idea of going back in time but, one-hundred years ago, there were few choices. Either you managed without, or you took one of the opiates with the inevitable consequences. Coming back into the current century, this means cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).

CBT ...
... has nothing to do with all the psychiatry/psychology stuff of worrying about what your parents did to you while you were a child or what you dream about. This is a very practical approach to solving your problems. It starts off with the cognitive component. This improves your knowledge of how your body works and why you feel pain. The pain response can be a little like the fear you have before going in to see a dentist. You anticipate the worst and magnify every sensation. It's the same if you fear pain should you move. In fact, people should always move. It improves the muscle tone and prevents joints from seizing up. By confronting your fears and understanding what's involved, you begin to overcome the self-imposed limits on what you can achieve. Then we come to the behavior element. This looks at what physical movements you can make and how you make them. Sometimes, you change the way you move because you think this reduces the chance of pain. Actually, this forces muscles to move in unexpected ways and can cause more problems in the medium- to long-term. So in combination with a therapist, you are shown how to move with less pain. The idea is to give you a better quality of life without having on rely on drugs.

This does not mean you need not take drugs. Sometimes, you have to increase the dosage during the initial stages of physical therapy. This allows you to free stiff joints and build strength in the muscles with the least pain. Tramadol is ideal for this. But as strength and mobility improve, you should be able to reduce the Tramadol and continue moving with less pain. Should there be a flare up, you can always take a painkiller for a day or so. But the result should be a good quality of life without drugs.