Chronic Pain FAQ
By: Various
Painreliefnetwork.orgQ. What is chronic pain?
A. Chronic pain is a progressive disease state of the nervous system caused by the overloading of the body’s natural pain control systems. The disease is accompanied by changes in the chemical and anatomical makeup of the spinal cord. Chronic pain is a malignancy. When it goes untreated it increases in intensity and spreads to areas of the body previously unaffected, damaging the sufferer’s health and functioning.Q. Why treat chronic pain with opioids?
A. Opioids are produced by the body’s natural pain control system. Commonly known as endorphins, these substances work in concert with receptors in our brain to deal with painful stimuli. Chronic pain is the condition where our body does not produce enough endorphins to cope with our pain levels and needs to be supplemented with pharmaceutical opioids. Opioid therapy for chronic pain is, in essence, replacement endorphin therapy.
Q. Doctors mostly ignore my chronic pain. Shouldn’t I just learn to live with it?
A. Doctors ignore your chronic pain for reasons that have nothing to do with the seriousness of your condition. Untreated chronic pain will damage your health and cause you to develop multiple health problems. Inactivity due to ongoing pain will lead to increased incidence of hypertension, heart disease, breathing disorders, cancer, and diabetes. If the disease is untreated in its most serious form, untreated chronic pain leads to suicide.
Q. Doctors have told me that if I have to take pain medications every day I must be an addict.
A. They tell you that because if they continue to treat you with opioid pain medications for more than a month or two, they subject themselves to criminal sanction and regulatory scrutiny. Since law enforcement currently regulates medicine in this vital area, doctors are not free to treat pain appropriately. Rather than face the fact that the police and prosecutors do not defer to medical judgment in this important area of medicine, doctors for the most part, prefer to pretend that you and other chronic pain suffers simply do not exist. This is why your doctor labels you an addict.
Q. My family also thinks I am an addict because I constantly need more pills than the doctor will give me. The doctor told my family that I am exhibiting drug-seeking behavior.
A. In addition to perverting the doctor-patient relationship, law enforcement control of medicine has had the effect of turning families against their ill loved ones and pharmacists against their customers. Official pressure and propaganda has been applied to our society through “Just say no” campaigns for over thirty years. It is difficult to think clearly when we have all been subjected to so much bad information at every level of our society. Try to be firm but loving with your family and educate them on chronic pain. Remind them that they have bodies too and could one day be in pain themselves. You might not be able to find adequate pain-relief but you should try to bring your family members around to a more sympathetic attitude toward you and your illness.
Q. Why are there so many pain clinics that don’t really treat pain?
A. Because not treating pain is law enforcement’s preferred approach to pain treatment. Many clinics offer temporary blocks, physical therapy, behavior modification and other techniques. If the clinic refuses to consider opioid therapy to treat your chronic pain, they aren’t up to date in pain management. Continue your search for state-of-the-art pain care.
Q. My doctor won’t give me pain pills but is only offering me an intrathecal pump, that will be surgically implanted in my spinal cord. I’ve read that there are risks with these pumps. What do I do?
A. Your doctor has you over a barrel. If you refuse the pump and switch doctors you may be labeled a doctor shopper. It’s up to you. All patients in pain find themselves coerced into unnecessarily painful and invasive procedures by health care professionals. This is one of the many dangerous side effects of law enforcement control over medicine.
