Chronic pain is a life-changing health condition that can impact every aspect of daily life. As the time and attention demanded by unrelenting pain increases, there can be less and less time for attention to other details. If you’re wondering is your chronic pain causing you to look older, this can have both direct and indirect effects on the appearance and can even contribute to a type of premature aging.
Even if true beauty is more than skin deep, overall personal appearance can provide insight on the state of physical and emotional well-being. Time devoted to good nutrition, regular exercise, and other basic self-care activities that support long-term health is often apparent in outward appearance.
Chronic pain can disrupt or disable many of the basic health maintenance activities that contribute to a sense of wellness and vitality. As these factors tend to decrease slowly over the lifetime, anyone with less capacity for health-supporting self-care activities can take on an appearance generally associated with premature aging. Recognition of such a change in appearance can become a vicious cycle for those suffering from chronic pain: looking older can further diminish emotional well-being and further discourage health-promoting activities.
In addition to the way in which chronic pain reduces the time for routine self-care, this condition can also alter the appearance by reducing the capacity to move, smile, and laugh as those without a chronic pain condition. As a result, people suffering from unremitting pain can simply appear frailer and infirmed in comparison to their peers at the same age.
Alliance Spine and Pain Centers understands the myriad ways in which chronic pain affects quality of life. Whether it is decreased mobility or premature aging that is most distressing for a patient, Alliance Spine and Pain Centers aims to alleviate any and all direct and indirect consequences of the condition in the lives of chronic pain patients.
Find out today how the team at Alliance Spine and Pain Centers can provide a customized chronic pain treatment plan if you’re wondering is your chronic pain causing you to look older. With 22 convenient locations throughout the Atlanta metro area and also in Augusta, GA, pain relief is just around the corner.