Understanding Chronic Pain: Causes, Treatment Options and Non-Opioid Relief Strategies

Last Updated July 2, 2025

Chronic pain is one of the most common reasons why people seek medical care today. It’s also a leading cause of disability. Chronic pain can be debilitating when it’s severe enough. Many people who suffer from it experience a loss of mobility, leaving them unable to leave their homes or even their beds. While chronic pain this intense is rare, even less severe pain can leave you unable to enjoy activities you once loved, potentially leading to isolation and mental health problems like depression.

According to the CDC, nearly 1 in 5 adults in the United States suffers from chronic pain.  The older population is hit especially hard because the risk of chronic pain increases with age. Adults aged 65 and older experience the most chronic pain of any demographic. Older adults are also more likely to experience high-impact chronic pain, or pain that affects a person’s daily life, work, socializing, and self-care.

Fortunately, there is hope. While the medical community is still learning about chronic pain, scientists are gaining more knowledge every day. Physicians are learning how to treat it effectively, so that those who suffer from it can live full lives.

What Is Pain? Understanding the Body’s Natural Response

In its most basic sense, pain is a sensation of discomfort created by the brain in response to unpleasant stimuli. If you stub your toe on a table leg, the nerve endings in your toe will send a signal to your brain, telling the brain that it’s been hurt. The brain then emits a signal back through your body, which you experience as pain.

This particular type of pain is known as acute pain.

Acute pain is a survival mechanism. If you never felt pain, then you would not know that your body was injured. For example, if you were to get a cut to the back of the thigh, you couldn’t visibly see your injury. Without pain signals from the brain, how would you know that your body had suffered an injury? You could die of an infection before you realized anything was wrong.

Acute pain is nature’s way of making us pay attention to our injuries. It alerts us to stop and take care of ourselves before we suffer further harm. Fortunately, acute pain like this usually disappears once the injury has healed. Chronic pain, on the other hand, is a different story.

What Is Chronic Pain and Why Doesn’t it Go Away?

Unlike acute pain, chronic pain persists after an injury or illness heals. By definition, chronic pain lasts for at least three months, but outbreaks can last for months or years, with no signs of disappearing. The sensation can vary from sharp and stabbing, like a migraine, to dull and throbbing, like an ache in your bones.

Everyone experiences chronic pain in different ways. There is no standard sensation or unifying characteristic.

This is why the classic 1-10 “pain scale” isn’t always an effective tool to gauge how much pain a person is suffering. Pain is a subjective experience, and we all have different pain threasholds. To complicate matters, chronic pain can come from multiple sources, as well.

Common Causes of Chronic Pain in Adults

1. Chronic Pain After Injury: When Acute Pain Becomes Long-Term

Chronic pain may be caused in response to acute pain, like a lingering ache in your back after rupturing or pulling a disc. Doctors and patients alike often mistake chronic pain for acute pain at first, because it may appear that chronic pain is simply the re-emergence of an old injury. But chronic pain is a pain that has taken on a life of its own.

Researchers are making progress towards understanding why acute pain sometimes shifts into chronic pain. In chronic back pain, for example, studies have identified risk factors like “…higher pain intensity, higher body weight, carrying heavy loads at work, difficult working positions, and depression.”

2. Chronic Pain From Illnesses Like Arthritis and Fibromyalgia

Just like with acute pain, chronic pain may be brought on by a condition like Lyme disease, fibromyalgia, sciatica, or arthritis. Older adults are more likely to suffer from chronic illnesses than younger adults. Common side effects of chronic illnesses include fatigue, aches, migraine, and nerve pain.

Certain types of cancer can also cause chronic pain. Tumors can put pressure on nerves, or release chemicals that irritate nerves. Cancer treatments, like chemotherapy or surgery, can also produce a chronic pain response.

3. The Link Between Chronic Pain, Depression and Anxiety

Chronic pain is also common in people who suffer from mental health conditions like depression and anxiety. It’s not currently clear whether depression itself causes chronic pain or if chronic pain causes depression. Given what we know about the mind-body connection, however, it’s likely that having one condition can worsen the other.

If you feel depressed, then you’re more likely to experience chronic pain more intensely. If your pain is so intense that you can no longer leave your home, then your depression can worsen from the isolation, creating a vicious cycle.

4. When Chronic Pain Has No Clear Cause

Sometimes, there’s no clear cause for chronic pain at all, which can be all the more frustrating for someone who suffers from it. It’s easy for someone with chronic pain to feel powerless in the world around them. However, that doesn’t have to be the case. There are plenty of different ways to manage chronic pain without addictive medications like opioids.

Non-Opioid Treatment Options for Chronic Pain Relief

In the past, it was common for doctors to prescribe opioids as a solution for patients with chronic pain. These medications can be effective against short-term acute pain, but using opioids alone is unlikely to give you the relief that you want. Even more concerning, however, is that opioids are extremely addictive. Using them for too long can create a dependence that can put users at risk for dangerous side effects and deadly overdoses.

Holistic Pain Management: A New Path to Relief

The most effective way to manage chronic pain is through a multi-pronged approach of proper nutrition, physical activity, and psychological aid. 

Studies also indicate that hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) can benefit patients experiencing chronic pain from fibromyalgia and myofascial pain syndrome. In these studies, patients experienced improvements in pain threshold and quality of life, as well as decreased disability, after an HBOT treatment program. Patients of the Aviv Medical Program, which can include an evidence-based HBOT protocol among other therapies, have experienced relief of chronic pain from conditions like fibromyalgia. HBOT, when combined with nutritional guidance, physical activity, and cognitive coaching in the Aviv Medical Program, can be a life-changing treatment for chronic pain conditions.

Read more about how to manage chronic pain without medications.

Real Stories of Chronic Pain Relief: How Greg Found Hope with the Aviv Medical Program

When fibromyalgia pain affected Greg, he not only needed to quit his job, but struggled to even get out of bed on some days. Some treatments helped, but the side effects often left him with brain fog and other cognitive challenges. For more than 20 years, he sought a better solution.  Since completing hyperbaric oxygen therapy and other interventions in the Aviv Medical Program, his pain is under control. Greg says he’s once again living his life naturally, instead of fighting his way through life with the chronic pain of fibromyalgia.

Contact us to determine if the Aviv Medical Program can be a suitable treatment for your chronic pain.