Is Your Pain Treatment Hurting?

A year after giving birth to her third child, Teresa Shaffer began to feel excruciating back pain. An MRI revealed that cushiony discs behind it worsened, a sign of osteoarthritis, a degenerative joint disease which usually occurs much later in life. She was only 24. "Because I was so young, the doctor did not think I had the disease," says Shaffer, now 46. He said it takes antialgice OTC.

It was not until she visited a different doctor, that she really started to get help. He asked if she was depressed (back pain and depression often go hand in hand), prescribed an antidepressant, and referred her for counseling. He sent her to physical therapy and put on a fentanyl patch, a strong opioid for people who require constant drug. Now she is able to walk for an hour on the treadmill every day.

An estimated 43 million Americans living with chronic pain report defined as a period of at least three months. However, experts agree that it is terribly undertreated in our country. Despite progress in understanding the pain a few doctors are aware of these advances are trained in pain management, says Michel Dubois, MD, Director of Pain Medicine at New York University Medical Center Langon.

A major change in thinking is that chronic pain is now believed to be a disease not a symptom, and that treating pain is about simply does not cover the source, but treating the whole person. Like heart disease or other chronic conditions, there is no magic bullet, so we must rely on a number of approaches to exercise and medications for relaxation techniques and talk therapy.

Removing the pain can not fully realistic, what can be more than enough to improve your life and do things you love. If you make any mistakes that follows, we have the right formula for lasting relief.

You're trying to tough it out

One in four people suffering from pain expected at least six months before you see a doctor, usually due to pain or downplaying thinking it will pass on their own, according to the American Pain Society. And many sufferers self treatment with OTC analgesics.

Get relief: Ask treatment sooner rather than later. Studies show that most injuries resolve themselves in about four weeks, so if yours has not, or if your pain is affecting your ability work-see your doctor. Waiting can wreak havoc on the body and mind. When pain keeps you from being active, and reduce muscle weakness and strengthen joints, setting additional damage.

Research has shown that chronic pain can also lead to depression and even shrink your brain. A study of 26 patients who had back pain for at least one year found that they had a percent 5 to 11 percent of lost brain cells in two brain areas, prefrontal cortex and thalamus-compared with a group of control. One explanation is that neurons are overactive for so long that it causes them to break down and die, Dubois explains. Researchers hypothesis that if pain persists, it may become less responsive to treatment due to brain changes.

You have seen more than one specialist

In our fragmented health system, with a professional for all diseases, it is easy to jump from one doctor to another. But doctor hopping, experts say, can waste time and money, lead to excessive MRIs and other diagnostic tests, treatment and delay.

Get relief: Find a doctor who can be your point person to coordinate other treatments. Your primary care doctor is probably the best person for this. "Just make sure you have a feeling that he or she take pain seriously, offers a treatment strategy, and sees you often enough to monitor your progress or refer to a specialist if your plan is work, "says Russell Portenoy, MD, chairman of the department of pain medicine and palliative care at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City. That's what made Shaffer. Although her doctor was not fully trained in pain management-and most physicians-are not "always did research to find out what my next step should be," she said.

If you have been suffering for months with no improvement, then it may be time to seek a comprehensive pain management center. (To find one, visit the website of the American Academy of Pain Management at aapainmanage.org.) If you have pain management experts near you, find a specialist who deals with the source of your pain, as an orthopedist for back pain or a rheumatologist for arthritis or fibromyalgia.

You are afraid to exercise

This may be the last thing you feel like you do when you're hurt, but study after study shows that exercise reduces all types of pain. It strengthens your muscles and joints oils, making you less likely to get reinjured. It also releases natural pain-relieving endorphins, which can boost your mood, and fight inflammation associated with a number of painful conditions such as gout and rheumatoid arthritis.

Get relief: Go slow and easy, especially if you have been sedentary for several months. Not five or 10 minutes of walking or other low-impact activity several times a day if that's all you can. Swimming or water aerobics, especially in warm water, making it easy to move, take the pressure on joints, reduce stiffness and pain. "The goal is to get to a comfortable level of functioning," says Judith Turner, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Washington. For people who have fibromyalgia, low-to moderate-intensity activity reduces pain better than high intensity.

A physical therapist can guide and help establish a safe level. But physical therapists or other treatments are offered to practitioners such as ultrasound and electrotherapy, have little evidence to support their effectiveness beyond the short-term symptom relief said Tim Carey, MD, Director, Sheps Center for Health Services Research of University of North Carolina.

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