Pain - 'Start Here'
Before you change your bandage, it is important to manage your PAIN.
Often, when we think about pain, we think about medicine we take that will make the pain go away. The truth is, there are many different ways you can “BRAKE THE PAIN”.
Braking the pain is putting the brakes on the many different ways pain can hurt us, using three steps:
PREVENT, CONTROL, TREAT.
In your BRIC Box you will find a pain pack with what you can use to Brake the Pain.
PREVENT:
INFLAMMATION
Our bodies react to the damage bullets cause in our skin, tissues, muscles, and bones, by a process called inflammation. This is how we repair and heal and this process can be very irritating to our nerves, and can cause more pain. It is not unusual for a bullet injury to hurt WORSE over the first few days after we are injured than it did when we first got shot. We can help cool down inflammation by preventing it in the first place.
IBUPROFEN can help slow down the inflammation. Because of this, it is best to take ibuprofen BEFORE the pain gets really bad, as it works best when we use it to prevent pain.
The best way to take Ibuprofen is 600-800mg every 6 hours for the first 2 days after a bullet injury. Then you can switch to taking it as needed, not taking more than 3200mg a day.
Placing an ice pack on any areas that are tender and swollen can help cool down the tissue and make the swelling better.
There is also some cream or oil that contains ARNICA in your BRIC box. Arnica is a plant that helps with bruising and swelling.
CONTROL:
If a bullet goes deep enough to injure our muscles and bones it can make our muscles “twitchy”, causing spasms. This is like having a “Charlie Horse” or a really bad cramp. The achy feeling can go on for a long time and can even wake us from sleep.
MAGNESIUM supplements can help control the spasms and improve your relaxation overall. Magnesium is a mineral that is naturally found in your body and in food.
The best way to take Magnesium is 200-400mg every day. This can be in the form of a sugar free gummy that has 100mg of Magnesium, like the ones in your BRIC Box pain pack.
TREAT:
Even if we do our best to prevent and control our pain, sometimes the signals still get to our brain and it just hurts. A lot.
ACETAMINOPHEN, often known as “Tylenol”, is a medication that can help block those pain signals from getting to the brain.
The best way to take acetaminophen is 1000mg every 6 hours for the first 2 days after a bullet injury. Then you can switch to taking it as needed, not taking more than 4000mg a day.
“Yeah, but will it work?”
Each part of the prevent-control-treat method will not do much for the pain on its own. The power of BRAKING the PAIN is using all three ways together to help stop the pain before it gets too bad.