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Chronic Pain In America

How do you cope when nothing can stop the pain? M&J take you inside a debilitating condition difficult to diagnose and even harder to treat.

Tips to Cope with Pain:

1) Seek help early! It is critical to get treatment early on b/c left untreated chronic pain can lead to depression and that can worsen the pain. If the pain lasts longer than the usual healing process for a specific condition, go seek help!

2) Make sure your doctor has formal training in pain medicine! This is something every patient needs to know! Pain management is a specific specialty. A lot of physicians will market themselves as pain specialists and they have no training whatsoever in pain. The best way to check, is to go on the AMA website- and look under doctor finder or doctor profile and look at your doctor’s training to see if they have pain management training. Also, ask your doctor directly. Ask Do you have certification in pain management? Where did you do your fellowship? People don’t know to ask those questions!

3) Go to a comprehensive pain treatment center! It is an important to go to a physician who uses every technique available. There are lots of different approaches to treating pain. There are drugs, procedures, alternative treatments like acupuncture and massage. In my opinion the best is a combination of all of them! There are physicians who believe in one thing alone- pills or injections for example. That’s no good. Combination therapy works best!

4) Involve significant others and develop a strong support group! Don’t be isolated. I see patients who tell me don’t tell my mom or dad I am on these drugs. You need people to understand what you are dealing with. Some people bring friends to their appointments. It helps the patients cope. I have seen that for myself.

5) Educate yourself! You need to know everything you can on the problem that you have and possible treatments. Read about the signs and symptoms of what you believe you have. Make sure you only do things that are studied or approved. There are a lot of advertised options out there. Not everything has been studied. There are a lot of websites like pain.com or the American pain society where you can do some research.