Chronic Pain Treatment

Pain Treatment Technologies and Relief

15th September 2025

7 Ways to Treat Chronic Back Pain Without Surgery

Back pain is considered chronic if it lasts three months or longer. It can come and go, often bringing temporary relief, followed by frustration. Dealing with chronic back pain can be especially trying if you don’t know the cause.

Nonsurgical Treatments for Chronic Back Pain

Physical Therapy

1. Exercise is the foundation of chronic back pain treatment. It’s one of the first treatments you should try under the guidance of your physician and spine physical therapist. However, the same set of exercises doesn’t work for everyone, says Nava. The exercises have to be tailored to your specific symptoms and condition. Maintaining the exercise routine at home is also a big part of success.Physical therapy for chronic back pain may include:
   • Retraining your posture
   • Testing the limits of pain tolerance
   • Stretching and flexibility exercises
   • Aerobic exercises
   • Core strengthening

Mindfulness and Meditation

1. Chronic back pain is straining both physically and emotionally. To manage the frustration, irritability, depression, and other psychological aspects of dealing with chronic pain, you may get referred to a rehabilitation psychologist. This specialist may recommend meditation, yoga, tai chi, and other cognitive and relaxation strategies to keep your mind from focusing on pain
2. Diet

Diet

Some diets are highly inflammatory, especially those high in trans fats, refined sugars, and processed foods. Consult with your doctor to see if your diet could be contributing to your chronic back pain and how you could change it. Maintaining a healthy weight could also help lessen your back pain by reducing the pressure on your spine.

Lifestyle Modifications

When you have chronic pain, it’s important to accept your limitations and adapt. “Listen to your body and learn to pace yourself,†suggests Nava. Take a break when mowing the lawn, or make several trips when carrying groceries. Take note of the activities that worsen your pain and avoid them if possible. Not only could this help your back feel better, but it could also prevent the underlying condition from advancing. Another important lifestyle change to try is giving up smoking. Nicotine is scientifically known to accentuate pain and delay healing.

Injection-based Treatments

Nerve blocks, epidural steroid injections, nerve ablations, and other types of injection-based procedures are available for chronic back pain. They are used when the source of the pain is known and can sometimes help rule out certain causes if the treatment doesn’t work. Injections may stop or lessen pain for a certain period of time, but are not intended as long-term solutions and shouldn’t be used in isolation.

Alternative Treatments

Acupuncture, massage, biofeedback therapy, laser therapy, electrical nerve stimulation, and other nonsurgical spine treatments can also make a difference in chronic back pain. Talk to your spine specialist about alternative treatments that could benefit you.

Pharmacologic Treatments

Analgesics, anti-inflammatory drugs, muscle relaxants and other medications can be used to help control chronic back pain. However, most come with unwanted side effects and are not intended for prolonged use.

“Opioid medications generally shouldn’t be used as the first, the only or the long-term line of treatment for chronic back pain,†recommends Nava. Many of them are addictive and don’t address the underlying cause of your pain. Opioids should be prescribed only after a thorough exam by a specialist and if other drugs have failed to provide relief. If you find yourself relying on opioids to get through the day, it may be time to seek a second opinion.

What is pain?

Pain starts in receptor nerve cells found beneath the skin and in organs throughout the body. When you are sick, injured, or have other type of problem, these receptor cells send messages along nerve pathways to the spinal cord, which then carries the message to the brain. Pain medicine reduces or blocks these messages before they reach the brain.

Pain can be anything from a slightly bothersome, such as a mild headache, to something excruciating and emergent, such as the chest pain that accompanies a heart attack, or pain of kidney stones. Pain can be acute, meaning new, subacute, lasting for a few weeks or months, and chronic, when it lasts for more than 3 months. 

Chronic pain is one of the most costly health problem in U.S. Increased medical expenses, lost income, lost productivity, compensation payments, and legal charges are some of the economic consequences of chronic pain. Consider the following:

• Low back pain is one of the most significant health problems. Back pain is a common cause of activity limitation in adults.
• Cancer pain affects most people with advanced cancer.
• Arthritis pain affects more than 50 million Americans each year.
• Headaches affect millions of U.S. adults. Some of the most common types of chronic headaches are migraines, cluster headaches, and tension headaches.
• Other pain disorders such as the neuralgias and neuropathies that affect nerves throughout the body, pain due to damage to the central nervous system (the brain and spinal cord), as well as pain where no physical cause can be found–psychogenic pain–increase the total number of reported cases.

What are the different types of pain?

Two types of pain include the following:

• Acute pain. This pain may come from inflammation, tissue damage, injury, illness, or recent surgery. It usually lasts less than a week or two. The pain usually ends after the underlying cause is treated or has been resolved.
• Chronic pain. Pain that persists for months or even years.

What is chronic pain?

Chronic pain is long-standing pain that persists beyond the usual recovery period or occurs along with a chronic health condition, such as arthritis. Chronic pain may be “on” and “off” or continuous. It may affect people to the point that they can’t work, eat properly, take part in physical activity, or enjoy life.

Chronic pain is a major medical condition that can and should be treated.

What causes chronic pain?

here are many causes of chronic pain. It may have started from an illness or injury, from which you may have long since recovered, but the pain remained. Or there may be an ongoing cause of pain, such as arthritis or cancer. Many people suffer chronic pain in the absence of any past injury or evidence of illness.

How is chronic pain treated?

Chronic pain affects all parts of your life. The most effective treatment includes symptom relief and support. A multidisciplinary approach to pain management is often required to provide the needed interventions to help manage the pain. Pain management programs are usually done on an outpatient basis. Many skilled professionals are part of the pain management rehabilitation team, including:

• Neurologists and neurosurgeons
• Orthopedists and orthopedic surgeons
• Anesthesiologists
• Oncologists
• Physiatrists
• Nurses
• Physical therapists
• Occupational therapists
• Psychologists/psychiatrists
• Social workers
• Case managers
• Vocational counselors

Special pain programs are located in many hospitals, rehab facilities, and pain clinics.

The pain management rehab program

A pain management rehab program is designed to meet your needs. The program will depend on the specific type of pain, disease, or condition. Active involvement by you and your family is vital to the success of the program.

The goal of pain management programs is to help you return to the highest level of function and independence possible, while improving the overall quality of life–physically, emotionally, and socially. Pain management techniques help reduce your suffering.

To help reach these goals, pain management programs may include:

• Medical management of chronic pain, including medicine management:
  • Over-the-counter (OTC) medicines may include nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), aspirin, or acetaminophen.
  • Prescription pain medicines, including opioids, may be needed to provide stronger pain relief than aspirin. However, these drugs are reserved for more severe types of pain, as they have some potential for abuse and may have unpleasant and potentially very dangerous side effects.
  • Prescription antidepressants can help some people. These medicines increase the supply of the naturally produced neurotransmitters, serotonin and norepinephrine. Serotonin is an important part of a pain-controlling pathway in the brain.
• Heat and cold treatments to reduce stiffness and pain, especially with joint problems such as arthritis
• Physical and occupational therapy such as massage and whirlpool treatments
• Exercise to reduce spasticity, joint contractures, joint inflammation, spinal alignment problems, or muscle weakening and shrinking to prevent further problems
• Local electrical stimulation involves the application(s) of brief pulses of electricity to nerve endings under the skin to provide pain relief
• Injection therapies, such as epidural steroid injection
• Emotional and psychological support for pain, which may include the following:
  • Psychotherapy and group therapy
  • Stress management
  • Relaxation training
  • Meditation
  • Hypnosis
  • Biofeedback
  • Behavior changes

The philosophy common to all of these varied psychological approaches is the belief that you can do something on your own to control pain. This includes changing your attitudes, the perception of being a victim, feelings, or behaviors associated with pain, or understanding how unconscious forces and past events have contributed to pain.

• Patient and family education and counseling
• Alternative medicine and therapy treatments, as appropriate

In addition, treatment may include:

• Surgery. Surgery may be considered for chronic pain. Surgery can bring release from pain, but may also destroy other sensations as well, or become the source of new pain. Relief is not necessarily permanent, and pain may return. There is a variety of operations to relieve pain. Consult your doctor for more information.
• Acupuncture. Acupuncture is a 2000-year-old Chinese technique of inserting fine needles under the skin at selected points in the body, and has shown some promise in the treatment of chronic pain. Needles are manipulated by the practitioner to produce pain relief.