Pain Management Made Easy

Some people have chronic pain from an accident that has left their bones and muscles not as they once were.  Some have the pain due to a disease such as arthritis or cancer.  Either way, these people need to talk to a pain management doctor who is a specialist in the field that causes the pain that ails them.

If your pain is the result of an accident or a surgery where a part of your body is not as strong as it once was, if you have pain completing everyday tasks, visiting a pain management doctor will help. They can recommend for you a course of treatment based on combined your condition, level of pain and  your physical abilities or disabilities to manage your pain most effectively. 
 
Most reputable doctors will begin with a course of anti-inflammatory drugs to reduce any swelling that is caused by the injury and causes resulting pain.  In conjunction with anti-inflammatory drugs, many pain management doctors will include a course of physical rehabilitation or exercise to increase the pain reducing efforts of the anti-inflammatory drugs.  If combined these efforts do not effectively manage your pain, your doctor may include additional therapies.
 
These additional therapies can include nerve blocks which consist of localized injections such as cortisone or another type of steroid or an analgesic shot such as lidocane.  This type of treatment will provide relief from the pain for a short while (usually 3-6 months) (1).  another form of pain management therapy is the prescribing of pain killers either orally or via a transdermal patch. 
 
Use of pain killers in either form is usually a final effort for chronic pain as, if your chronic pain is due to a life-long condition, the patient can become addicted to the pain killers and they will eventually lose their effectiveness.  Pain killers for short term pain management as such to get over the discomfort from surgery are considered not as dangerous.

In cases where pain is caused by a disease such as arthritis, a pain management doctor - usually who specializes in rheumatology - will often try to build the bone up again through supplements and pain medication specifically for arthritis.  Rarely are full on, opiate pain killers prescribed for such long term use as one that suffers from arthritis are occasionally prescribed for breakthrough pain management for outside forces such as cold or damp conditions which can trigger an attack.

If pain is due to a patient having cancer, most pain management doctors, working in conjunction with the patient’s oncologist will allow the person to have the stronger opiate-type pain killers. If the patient is undergoing chemotherapy and is having digestive tract, or stomach issues due to the chemotherapy, most pain management doctors will prescribe the patient a transdermal patch - think of a nicotine patc. But instead of nicotine it will be giving off fentanyl or morphine to manage the pain incurred from both the disease (cancer) and the treatment (chemotherapy).
 
As both the patient and their doctors hope to see the patient alive and cancer free they view this as a short term treatment of opiates and risk the addiction fear.  In the case of terminal cancer patients, most doctors view the pain management as the last comfort they can provide a dying patient and will allow higher doses of the medication.

Pain management is something most people will encounter at some point in their lives be it for a small accident or a disease.  The most important rule is to work with your doctor, be honest and together you and your pain management doctor can come up with an effective means of managing your pain.