Someone undergoing long-term chronic pain management as I have knows that sometimes sleeping peacefully is only a dream.  In fact, sleep disorders are one of the chief complaints from many of my patients the past 26 years.  Unfortunately, many people turn to medications—either prescription or over the counter (OTC)—that can lead to serious problems.

Every month I post a new article to our websites Articles Page and if you would like to read this month’s posting Chronic Pain Management and the Role of Sleep Disturbances please Click Here.  I’ve included a brief excerpt from that article below.

So what do you do when you live with chronic pain and need to sleep? Do you give in and use potentially dangerous sleep medications or just suffer? Most experts recommend practicing good sleep hygiene, along with understanding the cause of disturbed sleep patterns. Sleep hygiene looks to the habits, environmental factors, and practices that may influence the length and quality of your sleep. These include bedtime, nighttime rituals, and disruptions to one’s sleep. These are typically represented by simple guidelines meant to effectively promote a good night’s rest.

If sleep problems persist after implementing sleep hygiene practices, it may be time to seek medical help. But what are some examples of good sleep hygiene? Below is some information I found during my research for this article. If you want to learn more, please go to www.about.com website and type in “Sleep Hygiene.”

• Relax before bedtime
• Make sure your bedroom is quiet, dark, cool, and comfortable
• Make sleep a priority: don’t sacrifice sleep to do daytime activities
• Get up and go to bed at the same time every day, even on weekends
• Avoid caffeine and other stimulants
• Don’t smoke - in bed or at all
• Exercise every day, but avoid doing it 4 hours before bedtime
• Bedrooms are for sleeping and sex, not for watching television or doing work
• Don’t toss and turn
• Don’t take naps

We have two Addiction-Free Pain Management®Trainings scheduled this Spring — one in Sacramento California in May and the one at Valley Forge Medical Center and Hospital in June. It’s not to late for people to sign up and in fact by mentioning this Blog I will make sure you get a $20 discount for either training. To get this discount you must call Ellen at (916) 575-9961 and ask her for the discount. Also, for these and other upcoming trainings you can check out our Calendar page.

For the past 26 years I’ve been telling my patients to have a good diet/nutrition plan in place in addition to all their other chronic pain management protocols.  Some pain conditions can be both helped or hindered by the type of diet someone is on.

This month one of the three topics I posted to our News & Research Page was the role of Vitamin D and some chronic pain conditions.  Please Click Here to read that posting as well as the other two posting for this month.  Learning as much as possible is one of the most important tasks for anyone undergoing chronic pain management treatment.  Diet and nutritional issues often get overlooked so please check into this.

We have two APM™ Certification Trainings scheduled this Spring—one in Sacramento California on May 18-19 that we are sponsoring and the one at Valley Forge Medical Center and Hospital on June 10-12. It’s not to late for people to sign up and in fact by mentioning this Blog I will make sure you get a $20 discount for either training. To get this discount you must call Ellen at (916) 575-9961 and ask her for the discount. For other upcoming trainings you can check out our Calendar page.

To learn about other roadblocks to effective chronic pain management and coexisting disorders including addiction please check out my article Overcoming Obstacles for Effective Chronic 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 udergoing chronic pain management and want to learn how to develop a plan for managing their chronic pain and coexisting psychological disorders including 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.

This month one of my research postings addresses how long-term opiate use may be problematic for chronic pain management.  I hear from treatment providers across the United States how many of the prescription opiate addicts they treat are amazed that once they are taken off of their medication they no longer have pain.  Many of these patients have been taking chronic pain management medication for several years or more.  I believe that what has occurred in these cases in an example of hyperalgesia. 

Although you may already know what hyperalgesia is, I’m including a definition of opiate-induced hyperalgesia from Wikipedia for anyone unfamiliar with this phenomenon.  This definition is also on my new research posting which you can read by Clicking Here and scrolling down to that posting.

Opioid-induced hyperalgesia or opioid-induced abnormal pain sensitivity is a phenomenon associated with the long term use of opioids such as morphine, hydrocodone, Oxycodone, and methadone. Over time, individuals taking opioids can develop an increasing sensitivity to noxious stimuli, even evolving a painful response to previously non-noxious stimuli (allodynia). Some studies on animals have also demonstrated this effect occurring after only a single high dose of opioids.

However, I always share with the treatment providers that there will also be many people who still have underlying chronic pain that needs appropriate medical intervention after the problematic medication is removed.  One of the most successful detoxification and transitional chronic pain management medications for someone who became addicted to their pain medication is buprenorphine. 

Subutex and Suboxone are the brand names that buprenorphine is being marketed for the treatment of opiate dependence. Both medications contain the active ingredient, buprenorphine hydrochloride, which works to reduce the symptoms of opiate dependence. Subutex contains only buprenorphine hydrochloride which was developed as the initial product. The second medication, Suboxone contains an additional ingredient called Naloxone to guard against misuse or abuse.

To learn about how to avoid problems with prescription medication used for chronic pain management and coexisting disorders including addiction please check out my article Avoiding the Prescription Drug Trap 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 udergoing chronic pain management and want to learn how to develop a plan for managing their chronic pain and coexisting psychological disorders including 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.

If you would like training in this model we have two APM™ Certification Trainings scheduled this Spring—one in Sacramento California on May 18-19 and the one at Valley Forge Medical Center and Hospital on June 10-12. It’s not to late for people to sign up and in fact by mentioning this Blog I will make sure you get a $20 discount for either training. To get this discount you must call Ellen at (916) 575-9961 and ask her for the discount.  For other upcoming trainings you can check out our Calendar page.

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.