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Back to the Basics--Dealing with the challenges of the many faces of pain...

I've been thinking about the problem of chronic pain for a long time..years, in fact.  I have my own personal chronic pain issues, but today I'm thinking on a broader scale.  The problem of chronic pain is extremely widespread. I have read article after article about how so many people are in pain, how pain is not well managed in chronic and other pain patients, and so on. It's very sad and quite frankly, depressing.

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The problem is...pain is not something that a health care practitioner can gauge in an objective way. To put it another way, when a person says they are in pain, they are in pain.  The only way to really measure pain is to ask the patient about the severity or use one of the pain scales that's based on observation.  On top of that, there are many types of pain.  For example, a patient may present with acute pain or chronic pain.  The pain of a migraine headache is not at all similar to the pain a person might experience passing a kidney stone, or suffering an attack of gout.  It's quite a challenge if you think about it.

When a person has acute pain, it may take some time to pinpoint the problem..but once the problem is found, it can be fixed/managed and that about sums it up. Chronic pain is a bit different because the situation is frequently more complex than acute pain.  Over time, the experience of recurring episodes often leads to anxiety and depression. A person who was once active and at a healthy weight may become inactive and overweight following an illness or injury..and then there is helplessness because it's not possible to do things that an individuals wants to or has to do.

This is why I believe that pain management is oh so much more than taking prescription medications. When the chronic pain patient is an active part of the pain management team, it makes a big difference in the quality that person's life.  There are so many complementary/alternative therapies to choose from. The patient can be actively engaged in sorting through what's available and what they think is right for their circumstances in coordination with the health care team.  Finding one therapy that is helpful--or even better, a combination of therapies -- can make a big difference in quality of life!





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