The “cost” for people with chronic pain is not only measured in lost productivity in the marketplace, or in lost salaries, but it also impacts families, friends, jobs, mental health and even their lives.  People in chronic pain pay a high price.  That price tag involves both money and human misery. 

Up until very recently people in this country had no idea how expensive and wide spread the “silent” epidemic of chronic pain really was.  People can become so depressed that they see no other alternative except suicide.  Many significant others who become primary caregivers want to be helpful, but as their loved one’s pain lingers on they burn out and feel frustrated, even hopeless.

About 10 percent of people taking mood-altering medication for chronic pain will develop substance use disorders including abuse, dependence, pseudoaddiction, and addiction.  When they go into a pain management program the focus is on the physical pain, but those programs don’t know what to do when patients act out from an addiction and often discharge them.  If a person goes into an addiction treatment program, the entire focus is on the addictive disorder and often the pain is not adequately addressed.  Collaborative multidisciplinary treatment interventions are a must for this population.

I believe that anyone with chronic pain and other disorders deserves effective and compassionate treatment.  It does not matter whether they have an addictive disorder or other psychological problems—they need and should get help. 

I’ve spent over a quarter of a century studying and working with people with chronic pain and coexisting disorders and I’m here to tell you that effective, concurrent treatment is possible.  That’s why I developed the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System, published books on the subject, and train healthcare providers on how to deliver a collaborative integrated chronic pain management approach.

For a number of years the focus has been to blame the patient or the physician, as the expanding war on pain management prescription drugs attests to.  If we start demanding effective, multidisciplinary pain management for people living with chronic pain, we can begin to lower the financial and human-misery price tag. 

We all know someone; a loved one, friend, colleague or an acquaintance who has had some kind of mismanaged chronic pain and suffered because of it.  Are you willing to join me in lobbying our representatives to push for better treatment and urge them to stop the war on pain management that the DEA is currently waging? Qualified healthcare providers need to be developing treatment policies for effective chronic pain management—not law enforcement or politicians.  Please write letters or make phone calls and let your voices be heard.

To learn about my views on the need for effective chronic pain management please check out my article The Right to Quality Chronic Pain Management that you can download for free on our Article page.

To check out my upcoming trainings you can check out our Calendar 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 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 today’s busy world I believe it is very important to develop effective stress management protocols into your daily living to improve your quailty of life.  But if you’re experiencing a chronic pain management situation like I am, it’s even more crucial because increased stress leads to increased pain. Often stressors are unavoidable but you can learn to be proactive and take effective action to improve your quality of life and chronic pain management.

In today’s blog I want to give you six simple steps for managing stress that could significantly improve any chronic pain management plan: Understanding Stress; Positive Self-Talk and Affirmations; Emotinal Management; Breath Work; Muscle Relaxation; and Meditation.

Step One Understanding Stress

It’s important to learn about stress and understand the stress scale.  It’s essential to recognize that stress can either be a positive influence or make your life overly difficult.  When looking at stress on a 1 to 10 scale, with 1 meaning you are very relaxed and 10 meaning you can’t function or you shut down, the danger zone begins at level 7 —stress overload!  From levels seven to ten you will experience disruptive symptoms.  It depends on how you interpret this distress whether you face the situation with confidence or helplessness.  At this point, you could shift into survival mode—fight, flight or freeze.  Any of those three modes will amplify your pain levels.  The fight mode leads to anger and attacking others; the flight mode leads to fear and hiding; and the freeze mode leads to depression and immobilization.

Step Two Stress-Reducing Self Talk and Positive Affirmations

The premise here is if you change the way you think you will automatically start changing the way you feel. For example if you’re under high stress the thought might be “I can’t stand this… I need to escape.” This in turn could lead to, fear, anger, anxiety, or even cravings to use self-defeating behaviors or even inappropriate pain medication for stress relief. You really can talk yourself into feeling better no matter what’s happening around you or to you.

Step Three Emotional Management

People undergoing chronic pain management often experience many types of uncomfortable emotions such as fear, anger, shame, frustration etc. Emotional management starts with learning to identify which emotions you are feeling and be able to rate them on a 0 to 10 intensity scale. The next step is to develop early awareness of and then learn how to take immediate action to cope with any uncomfortable feelings before they lead to self-defeating urges. Developing healthy feeling management skills is very important. Learning to share with trustworthy people is one way to deal with uncomfortable emotions. If the feelings are too intense or overwhelming, counseling or therapy may be necessary.

Step Four Autogenic Breathing or Breath Self-Regulation

This is a systematic daily practice of breathing sessions that last around 15 minutes, usually in the morning, at lunch time, and in the evening.  One simple exercise is to breath in deeply to the count of five hold for seven counts and slowly exhale starting from nine to zero.  You might consider adding this breath exercise to the next stress tip and practice both three times a day.

Step Five Progressive Muscle Relaxation

One way to do this is to start by taking slow deep breaths then hold your breath while tensing up one muscle group at a time and when you exhale let the muscle group relax.  Then add the next group and keep going until you are tensing and releasing all the muscle groups in your body. This can also be a very good exercise to practice right before going to sleep at night to help you have a more restful experience.

Step Six Meditation

There are literally hundreds if not thousands of types of meditation.  One way to start is to select a consistent time and a quiet place, either early morning and/or evening. Wear loose comfortable fitting clothing and a comfortable position that you can stay in for at least 30 minutes.  Do deep breathing for a minute or two to help relax the body.  Close your eyes and then focus on the point between your eyebrows to help increase your concentration.  If your mind wanders be gentle with yourself and just refocus. When you first start; meditate for 5-7 minutes then slowly increase your time.

These six steps are just a starting point and I encourage you to learn as many stress management tools as you can. If you want more information on stress and chronic pain management please go to our website and on the articles page archive click on my article The Stress Pain Connection, that you can download for free on our Ariticles page. This article also shows you how to rate your stress using the Gorski-CENAPS® Stress Thermometer.

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.
 

My predominant focus of today’s blog is on how you can develop effective chronic pain management techniques. This is intended for those of you living with chronic pain management conditions who want to learn valuable skills to better manage your chronic pain, improve your quality of life, and achieve your cherished goals.

I believe it is important to examine your personal relationship with your pain and your chronic pain management as well as taking an honest look at your medication management plan. Many people living with chronic pain face obstacles most people don’t need to be concerned about. Some conditions severely limit people’s level of physical functioning and living with constant pain can negatively impact people’s thinking and emotional management ability. 

What is often not discussed is the impact on family members and other significant others who have to bear witness to the person living with chronic pain. I’ve seen many families disrupted and many marriages end due to mismanaged or poorly managed chronic pain conditions. Sometimes family members and other significant others develop their own healthcare problems while trying to help someone undergoing chronic pain management. That is why today’s blog is also meant to be information for people who have friends or loved ones who are coping with a challenging chronic pain management condition.

You’ll manage your pain more effectively when you stop being a passive recipient and start becoming an active participant in your own healing process. The more active you are the more you can improve your pain management.

To learn about significant strategic steps that you can take to improve your chronic pain management please check out my new August article we just posted on our Addiction-Free Pain Management® website titled 12 Personal Action Steps for Chronic Pain & Medication Management that you can download for free on our Article page.

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