Alleviating pain

Unfortunately, pain often accompanies serious illness. Pain can be due to the illness itself or the treatment you receive for your illness. You may feel pain in connection with receiving radiation therapy, chemotherapy, or having surgery.

Pain is a sign that something is wrong in your body. Therefore, it's important that you react if you suddenly feel severe pain you haven't experienced before, experience long-term pain or experience some kind of pain that you actually haven't experienced before.

There are different types of pain, and therefore it is important to describe it it, since it helps to prescribe which treatment might be right for you. Pain can be described in different ways; it may for example be burning, stinging, nagging, prickling or throbbing.

You should be aware that your physical pain may be affected by your general well-being, your mood, how you feel in your relationship with your partner, your family and your work; on the whole, your life situation may affect your pain.

It's important that you tell your family and caregivers about your pain as well as about the treatment you're receiving. They will then have an understanding of why you might not manage things you used to and participate in the same activities as previously.

Many people fear severe pain and dying with pain. Often people think that pain is part of dying. However, today the vast majority of pain can be managed with medication.

As a relative or family member of a person with pain, you can support them by being aware of whether the pain changes, i.e. how it is experienced, the severity of the pain and how long it lasts. You can also support the patient by treating the pain with medication before it becomes too severe rather than waiting. And not least, you can support the patient by speaking openly about the pain they're feeling and your ill relative's well-being.