For decades the addiction treatment (addictive disorders) research literature has established the effectiveness of teaching meditation and relaxation techniques to people with addictive disorders. The pain literature also indicates the importance of using relaxation to help reduce the level of pain that people living with chronic pain experience. For example in her book, Managing Pain before it Manages You, Dr. Margaret Caudill (2001) explains how to evoke what she calls the relaxation response in order to reduce stress and pain.

There are many books and audiocassettes that can be used to teach you how to use meditation and relaxation exercises to reduce stress and anxiety. When practicing meditation, your heart rate and breathing slow down, your blood pressure normalizes, you use oxygen more efficiently, and you sweat less. Also, your adrenal glands produce less cortisol, your mind ages at a slower rate, and your immune function improves. Your mind also clears and your creativity increases.

There is also the stress-pain connection that is important to understand. In most cases if you can learn to lower your stress level, you will also experience a decrease in your level of pain. Unlike some medications and herbal therapies for stress management, meditation has no potential side effects. People with physical limitations may find it easier to practice than strenuous physical exercise for stress relief, plus, no special equipment is required.

Unlike enlisting the help of a professional, meditation is free. However, it does take discipline and commitment, so some people may find it more difficult to maintain as a habit than methods that enlist the help of someone or something outside themselves for added motivation. Also, some people may find it more difficult to free their minds of the thoughts of the day, and thus find it more difficult than methods like journaling that involve focusing on these events, or methods that in themselves are distracting, like physical exercise or the use of humor.

To learn more about chronic pain management please check out our website at www.addiction-free.com and go to our Publications page and check out my book Managing Pain and Coexisting Disorders: Using the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System. You can also check out our News & Resarch 2008 Arichives page to review my report Meditation for Chronic Pain Management.

To check out our July Chronic Pain Solutions Newsletter please click here.

People living with chronic pain who develop substance use disorders due to taking medication present a difficult challenge to treatment professionals.  Many health care providers see no difference in treatment outcomes when these patients are treated either in a pain clinic for their chronic pain condition or at a chemical dependency treatment center for their addiction issues.  In either case the prognosis ranges from poor to fair at best.  However, it is possible to increase the probability of a more successful treatment outcome by creatively combining existing chemical dependency and chronic pain treatment methods using a multidimensional, non-traditional approach.
 
An important part of developing an effective pain management plan is obtaining an accurate understanding of what effective pain management really means.  I believe that effective pain management requires a three part approach: (1) A medication management plan—developing an effective medication management agreement; (2) A cognitive-behavioral treatment plan—addressing pain versus suffering by better managing your thinking and feelings as well as changing any self-defeating behaviors and problematic social/family reactions; and (3) A non-pharmacological (non-medication) pain management plan—developing safer ways to manage pain. 

That’s why I developed the Addiction-Free Pain Management® (APM) system.  The APM system is a treatment approach that uses a biopsychosocial model to integrate the most advanced pain management methods developed at the nation’s leading pain clinics, with the most effective treatment methods for addictive disorders developed at the nation’s leading addiction treatment programs. The result is a unique integration of treatment methods that combine proper medication management with nonpharmacological techniques to insure both chronic pain management and addiction treatment. This leads to relief of pain while lowering or eliminating the risk of addiction or relapse.

To learn more about chronic pain management please check out our website at www.addiction-free.com and go to our Publications page and check out my book Managing Pain and Coexisting Disorders: Using the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System. You can also check out our Articles page to download my free article The Right to Quality Chronic Pain Management.

To check out our July Chronic Pain Solutions Newsletter please click here.

Biofeedback has proven to be another effective, active method that you can learn to apply to further participate in your own chronic pain management. Biofeedback is a treatment technique where you are trained to improve your health by using signals from your own body. Physical therapists use Biofeedback to help stroke victims regain movement in paralyzed muscles. Psychologists use Biofeedback to help tense and anxious people to learn to relax. Specialists in many different fields use biofeedback to help their patients cope with their chronic pain.

There is a condition of dysponesis, also called faulty bracing, where people tense up their muscles to pain thereby intensifying the pain experience. Dysponesis is defined by Doreland’s Medical Dictionary as follows: “A reversible physiopathologic state consisting of unnoticed, misdirected neurophysiologic reactions to various agents (environmental events, bodily sensations, emotions, and thoughts) and the repercussions of these reactions throughout the organism.” One of the most direct methods for coping with dysponesis involves the use of biofeedback. This procedure teaches you to let go of stress and tension.

According to many Biofeedback practitioners, an effective biofeedback training program should be progressive and include several steps. The program starts with an accurate diagnosis of the problem followed by implementation of the proper treatment modality and time for you to practice in situations that simulate instances in which the symptoms most often arise. Learning to use meditation and relaxation techniques to reduce stress would also be a helpful complement to the Biofeedback process.

Although past research has been mixed with regard to biofeedback’s ability to decrease pain, when used within the context of an interdisciplinary approach, the results are very promising. The biopsychosocial model of pain, which is now accepted as the most common sense approach to the understanding and treatment of pain disorders, views physical disorders such as pain as a result of a complex and dynamic interaction among physiologic, psychological, and social factors, which perpetuates and may worsen how pain is experienced.

Each individual experiences pain uniquely. The range of psychological, social, and economic factors can interact with physical pathology to modulate a patient’s report of symptoms and subsequent disability. Indeed, the treatment efficacy of a biopsychosocial approach to pain has consistently demonstrated the value of this model. Biofeedback can serve as one important modality in this comprehensive approach.

To learn more about chronic pain management please check out our website at www.addiction-free.com and check out our Articles page to download my free article The Need for Multidisciplinary Chronic Pain Treatment to learn more about utilizing different integrative chronic pain treatment modalities. You can also go to our Publications page and check out my book Managing Pain and Coexisting Disorders: Using the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System.