How to Manage a Life of Pain_704

A recent news story from Associated Press titled "Pain medicine use has nearly doubled" prompted me to write this article about pain.
Prior to working in a pain practice, I lived and worked in California. My practice demographics there involved a greater number of females than males (3:1) and patients ages ranged from 18 - to 50-year-olds of a relatively healthy population. This was 16 years ago, and I can remember thinking, "Why would anyone use pain medicine on a constant basis to manage their life? They should just be able to exercise,true religion jeans, eat properly and take vitamins, and everything should work itself out." Obviously, since working with a chronic pain population and due to the fact that I am now older, my ideas and thoughts regarding pain and pain medicine have changed considerably.
According to the Associated Press article, "More than 200,Armani sunglasses,000 pounds of codeine, morphine, oxycodone, hydrocodone and meperidine were purchased at retail stores during 2005, the most recent year represented in the data. That is enough to give more than 300 milligrams of painkillers to every person in the country."
This increase is due to three factors: an aging population suffering with pain, exceptional marketing by the pharmaceutical companies, and a change in pain-management philosophy by pain doctors.
But before you make any judgment about pain medicine and about those who take pain medicine to control their pain, consider walking in their shoes for half a day.
Take into consideration all the "little things" you do every day. From simple activities such as bending to put on your socks or kneeling to pick up an object or even something menial such as frying an egg; just think of doing all that with severe pain.
But what really hits home for folks who suffer great pain is their inability to pick up their children, to play ball with their kids, to take care of their ailing parents,cheap clothing, to make love to their significant other, and last but not least,cheap jordans, their inability to go to the bathroom unassisted.
When pain medicine is used properly it can allow an individual who has chronic pain to live a somewhat normal life.
Can you imagine life if your ability to perform half your normal daily activities were compromised?
Can you imagine the depression that you would experience?
I paint this picture for you because I don't want you to think ill of the doctors who prescribe pain medicine or the patients who take pain medicine to manage their pain.
The pain medicine does not erase the pain. It takes the edge off it so that individuals can function to the best of their ability in our society.
If you suffer from chronic pain, the greatest gift you can give yourself is to work with a multidisciplinary facility, the members of which communicate with each other to manage your condition as a team.
Depending on the type of pain you experience, your multidisciplinary team could consist of an anesthesiologist, a physical medicine and rehabilitation specialist, a neurologist, an orthopedist, an internist, a chiropractor, a physical therapist, an occupational therapist and therapeutic masseur, an acupuncturist, and a nutritionist. It is best, however, to have only one doctor managing all your medications.
If you are the one suffering with pain, I request you memorize the following quote:
"Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional."
I will share with you, my reader, what I share with all my patients. If you can wake up in the morning and get yourself out of bed, if you can wipe your own behind, and if you can feed yourself, everything else that day is a bonus and all things in life are possible