We often receive inquiries from our website and calls at our office asking how do I know if someone is experiencing difficulty with their pain medication.  That is a major reason I published the Addiction-Free Pain Management® Module Two: Examining Your Potential Medication Problems that you can check out on our Publications page. To purchase this module please Click Here.

Below is a brief revised list of some of the most common Red Flags or indicators that signify that a person might be using their pain medication in a manner that could eventually lead to serious problems or even addiction.  If someone you care about or are working with is taking potentially addictive medication both you and that person need to be familiar with these red flags and to seek help from a professional trained in addiction who also has experience, understanding, or training in pain management if these problem indicators are present.

INSTRUCTIONS: Please review each of the items below and rate each on a 0 to 10 scale with 0 meaning this item is not and has not been a problem to 10 meaning this has been or is a serious problem.

• The person is more concerned about their medication than their pain condition.
• The person is resistant to non-narcotic medications or referrals for non-medication type pain management interventions or makes excuses why they won’t work.
• The person frequently needs early refills and may rationalize this by coming up with sometimes unusual excuses: I lost it, someone else took it, it fell in the water, etc.
• The person experiences an abnormal increase in tolerance requiring frequent increases in dose.
• The person is resistant to referrals for psychological assessment and/or treatment.
• The person is using non-prescribed substances including alcohol and/or other drugs i.e., marijuana, methamphetamine, etc. as well as inappropriate over-the-counter analgesic.
• The person is using the medication to cope with psychological/emotional type pain or to cope with stressful or uncomfortable situations.
• The person is experiencing problems with cognition, affect, and/or behavior.
• The person has a history—or family history—of alcoholism or other drug addiction.
• Family members or friends report concerns about the person’s use of medication.

Unfortunately, prescription medication abuse or addiction is only one obstacle so to better understand the importance of overcoming obstacles to effective chronic pain management please check out my article, Overcoming Obstacles for Effective 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.
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. 

To check out my upcoming trainings you can check out our Calendar page.

I can’t tell you for sure how many people I’ve worked with over the past 27 years have said to me something like “Please help me I’m tired of suffering.”  Many people undergoing chronic pain management are in fact “suffering” and it is so unnecessary. In fact, I tell the people that if—and only if—they are willing to learn and practice some new chronic pain management tools that I guarantee that they will never have to suffer again.  I do tell them, however, that does NOT mean they will never have pain again—pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional. 

Many people irrationally believe that:  “I shouldn’t have pain!” or “Because I have pain and I’m having trouble managing my chronic pain, there must be something wrong with me.”  A big step toward effective chronic pain management occurs when people can reduce their level of suffering by identifying and changing their irrational thinking and beliefs about the pain, which in turn decreases stress and overall suffering.

The anticipation of an expected pain level can influence the degree to which someone experiences pain.  I call this anticipatory pain. When the self-talk is saying, “this is horrible, awful, terrible,” the brain tends to amplify the pain signals.  When this occurs, the level of distress increases—people suffer, remaining a victim to their pain.

But people can learn how to change the anticipatory response to pain.  They can lower the amount of pain that they anticipate by changing what they believe will happen when they start to hurt.  They can also change the thinking—the self-talk—and learn how to better manage emotions.  I know people can learn new ways of responding to old situations that cause or intensify pain.

As someone comes to believe that they really can do things that will make the pain sensations bearable and manageable, the brain responds by influencing special neurons that reduce the intensity or perception of the pain.  The brain becomes less responsive to an incoming pain signal.  This indeed can be the difference between pain and suffering.

In 2007 I wrote an article titled Coping with Anticipatory Pain that is on our Article Archive. This month I decided to publish a new article titled Moving Beyond Anticipatory Pain 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 or a loved one is undergoing chronic pain management, especially if you’re in recovery or believe you may have a medication or other mental health problem and you want to learn more effective chronic pain management tools, please go to our Publications page and check out my books; especially the Addiction-Free Pain Management® Recovery Guide: Managing Pain and Medication in Recovery. To purchase this book please Click Here.

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.

To learn about my 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.

People undergoing chronic pain management who develop substance use disorders due to taking medication present a difficult challenge to healthcare providers.  Many of these professionals see little or no difference in treatment outcomes when these people are treated either in a pain clinic for their chronic pain management condition or at a addiction treatment program for their addictive disorders.  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 addiction and chronic pain management methods using a multidimensional—and sometimes non-traditional—approach. 

I believe that an important part of developing an effective pain management plan is obtaining an accurate understanding of what effective chronic pain management really means.  I believe that effective chronic 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 thinking and feelings as well as changing any self-defeating behaviors and problematic social/family reactions; and (3) A nonpharmacological (non-medication) chronic 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 chronic 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 for people in recovery.

For people who have an addictive disorder and suffer from chronic pain management problems there are significant obstacles to be addressed before positive treatment outcomes can be realized.  Unfortunately, there is a critical shortage of documented research and studies pertaining to this particular population.  As a result, many physicians prescribe addictive drugs to patients with chronic pain without taking necessary precautions. 

To learn more about effective chronic pain management—especially when other coexisting disorders are present—please check out my article The Need for Multidisciplinary 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 undergoing chronic pain management and want to learn how to develop a plan for managing their chronic pain and coexisting psychological disorders; including depression, addiction and other coexisting psychological disorders effectively; please consider my book Managing Pain and Coexisting Disorders: Using the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System. To purchase this book please Click Here.

To learn about my upcoming trainings you can check out our Calendar page.

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.