If you’re living with chronic pain and want to improve your quality of life you need to have good pain management.  An effective pain management plan starts with an accurate assessment of your presenting problems, your strengths, weaknesses, support system, as well as any obstacles that could sabotage your pain management.  This usually requires using a multi-disciplinary team approach that includes an in-depth medical history and physical by your doctor followed by appropriate diagnostic testing by other team members. 

One of the first treatment decisions needs to be whether or not modification to your medication plan is necessary.  If it is needed then you need to determine whether inpatient medical assist is necessary or you can do it on an outpatient basis with your doctor’s guidance.  This is where you need to develop your personalized appropriate medication management plan. 

Do You Need Pain  Medication Modification?

If modifications to your medications are made you may need some craving management tools to help you adhere to your new plan and ways, in addition to your medication, to handle pain flare ups.  As you continue with your pain management planning it is important to learn non-pharmacological, holistic pain management tools as well as social support. 

Then you need to develop an initial relapse prevention plan that will help you identify your high-risk situations for ineffective pain management or self-sabotage.  It is crucial to have a relapse prevention plan in place that addresses both your high risk pain situations as well as any core psychological or other coexisting issues such as depression. An essential part of that plan is also to have a simple yet effective pain flare up plan in place.

In APM™ Module Four: A Guide for Managing Pain Medication in Recovery you can learn to explore how you can use pain medication using a recovery oriented approach. First you will look at some misunderstood terms, then you will be asked to list the benefits and disadvantages of using pain medication. Next you’ll write your pain history story and then be shown how to develop your own effective pain medication management plan. The final step is to review a Recovery/Relapse Indicator Checklist and complete a final call to action.

For a brief overview of some of the information in this module please check out my article Managing Pain Medication in Recovery that you can download for free on our Ariticles page. To purchase APM™ Module Four please Click Here.

For those of you that would like an additional resource regarding medication management please go to our Publications page and check out my Addiction-Free Pain Management® Module Two: Examining Your Potential Medication Management Problems. To purchase this module please Click Here.

To learn about two skill trainings coming up in Sacramento California designed to teach treatment strategies for people living with chronic pain and coexisting disorders including disorders including addiction please Click Here.To listen to a radio interview I did conducted by Mary Woods for her program One Hour at a Time please Click Here to go to this interview.To read the latest issue of Chronic Pain Solutions Newsletter please Click here. If you want to sign up for the newsletter, please Click here and input your name and email address. You will then recieve an autoresponse email that you need to reply to in order to finalize enrollment.

In my early pain management recovery I often set myself up for setbacks.  I have the personality type of “more is better” and always pushed the envelope.  It took me a while to see how this was self-defeating behavior.  The first thing that often happened after my setback was a feeling of hopelessness and frustration—“I’m always going to be this way.”  This second self-defeating mindset is one of the 12 common denial patterns—Strategic Hopelessness; AKA Diagnosing Myself as Beyond Hope.

For over 26 years I’ve worked with patients living with chronic pain who also developed coexisting psychological disorders, including addiction, as a result of living with debilitating chronic pain.  One of the tools that I was able to adapt was Terence T. Gorski’s Denial Management Counseling for Addictive Disorders.  I modified his denial management system to work with other coexisting disorders including chronic pain.
 
My first publication in this area is the Denial Management Counseling for Effective Pain Management Workbook.  This workbook was designed for people who have experienced significant problems related to living with chronic pain, but who honestly don’t believe—or don’t want to believe—that their self-defeating decisions and behaviors are undermining what could be an effective pain management plan.  This process is an important component of the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System.

To learn more about chronic pain management and denial please check out my article From Denial to Effective Pain Management that you can download for free on our Article page. To learn about two skill trainings coming up in Sacramento California designed to teach treatment strategies for people living with chronic pain and coexisting disorders including addiction and prescription drug abuse please Click Here.

You can learn more about the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System at our website www.addiction-free.com. If you are working with people in chronic pain or are living with chronic pain and have any resistance or denial and want to learn how to develop a plan for helping to identify and manage denial please go to our Publications page and check out my book the Denial Management Counseling for Effective Pain Management Workbook. To purchase this book please Click Here.

To listen to a radio interview I did conducted by Mary Woods for her program One Hour at a Time please Click Here to go to this interview.

To read the latest issue of Chronic Pain Solutions Newsletter please Click here. If you want to sign up for the newsletter, please Click here and input your name and email address. You will then recieve an autoresponse email that you need to reply to in order to finalize enrollment.

I’ve been teaching healthcare providers since 1996 that there is no such thing as a bad prescription drug; it’s how they’re used and who they are used with that can have positive or negative consequences.  For example, I know that a lot of people have died from OxyContin, but I have yet to see one documented case where the person who died was taking it “exactly as prescribed.”

I agree that prescription drug abuse and addiction is a very big problem but the War on Drugs type of approach just can’t fix this healthcare issue.  In fact, I also believe that many people in chronic pain are not getting the pain relief they need and deserve due to the fear-mongering that comes from the DEA and other political sources that demonize pain patients and pain doctors. 

Last year I received an update from Join Together titled “Prescription Drugs Blamed for Rising Overdose Deaths.”  In part, this update reported that overall sales of prescription drugs have increased almost 500 percent since 1990.  To link to the full page please Click Here.

To learn about two skill trainings coming up in Sacramento California designed to teach treatment strategies for people living with chronic pain and coexisting disorders including disorders including addiction and prescription drug abuse please Click Here.

To read more about my thoughts about the impact on pain management from the so-called war on drugs, please read my article War on Drugs - War on Pain Management that you can download for free on our Ariticles page.

You can learn more about the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System at our website www.addiction-free.com. If you are working with people in chronic pain or living with chronic pain yourself and want to learn how to develop a plan for managing the pain and coexisting psychological disorders including PTSD or addiction effectively please go to our Publications page and check out my book the Managing Pain and Coexisting Disorders: Using the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System. To purchase this book please Click Here.

To listen to a radio interview I did conducted by Mary Woods for her program One Hour at a Time please Click Here to go to this interview.

To read the latest issue of Chronic Pain Solutions Newsletter please Click here. If you want to sign up for the newsletter, please Click here and input your name and email address. You will then recieve an autoresponse email that you need to reply to in order to finalize enrollment.