The chronic pain management problem is growing. People are suffering in greater numbers. Many people undergoing chronic pain management are not receiving adequate treatment. Many are becoming hopeless and helpless while others are experiencing medication abuse and even addiction due to mismanaged chronic pain. This must change.

Since 1996 I have been researching and developing the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System to help address this growing problem. I have joined several pain management organizations in order to have better access to quality research. Today I wanted to revisit how serious this problem with chronic pain is becoming and review some possible ideas for improvement.

It is crucial to improve the problems associated with uncontrolled chronic pain. This is a societal necessity, a medical challenge and an economic requirement. If the need for chronic pain management is not recognized as a serious problem and treated effectively it takes an enormous personal toll on millions of people and their families. It also puts a major drain on our already stretched healthcare dollars. Undertreated chronic pain can also compromise the productivity of our workforce.

Even though the overutilization of the healthcare system by this population is a major drain on society and is one of the most serious public health concerns, it has been curiously missing from the current national debate on health reform. We must take the necessary steps to re-define chronic pain management as a much needed component of our healthcare system and must immediately address this public health crisis.

To learn more about my thoughts on the need and right 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.

If you would like to see my upcoming trainings and especially to learn about my 20 hour (three days) Addiction-Free Pain Management® Certification Training on December 7-9, 2009 in Sacramento California designed to teach treatment strategies for people living with chronic pain and coexisting disorders including disorders including addiction please Click Here and scroll down to the December 7-9, 2009 for the description and how to sign up.

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.

Over the past 27 years most of the chronic pain patients I have worked with had a moderate to severe history of unresolved trauma e.g., Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Even more significant is that 100 percent of my patients who were living with chronic pain and also developed a true addictive disorder had a moderate to severe trauma history. In addition to PTSD and addiction, depression is another very common coexisting psychological disorder for someone living with chronic pain. 

Nowhere is this problem greater than in our military troops coming home from combat in the Middle East. This past year I have trained several people working with our returning Veterans and they shared with me the obstacles they are experiencing with some of the returning wounded warriors. Many of these men and women experienced major trauma while in combat. When they were wounded this trauma reaction seriously impacted their ongoing chronic pain management.

For many years I’ve been proposing collaboration not competition and utilizing a multidisciplinary approach when working with people living with chronic pain and coexisting disorders including addiction. I believe it is imperative for pain management physicians to work hand-in-hand with other healthcare disciplines in order to provide the best treatment outcomes for this population.

To learn more about the importance of using a collaborative multidisciplinary approach for chronic pain management especially if PTSD or 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 Article page.

If you would like to see my upcoming trainings and especially to learn about my 20 hour (three days) Addiction-Free Pain Management® Certification Training on December 7-9, 2009 in Sacramento California designed to teach treatment strategies for people living with chronic pain and coexisting disorders including disorders including addiction please Click Here and scroll down to the December 7-9, 2009 for the description and how to sign up.

As the Clinical Director of Training and Consultation for the Gorski-CENAPS® Corporation I am very excited to announce that Brentwood Meadows has now taken the next step towards the Gorski-CEANPS® Relapse Prevention Center of Excellence (COE).  Last month I conducted the first staff training for the new Brentwood Meadows Program; a 24 Bed Hospital licensed facility in Evansville Indiana. Today I finished the second training and the first day of Center of Excellence Evaluation.

This is like no other hospital facility I have seen. For example the ceilings in the patient area were 25 feet high, which gave that area a feeling of spaciousness. The furniture was not the traditional institutional grade but rather more like you would find in a high end hotel. In addition, Brentwood Meadows is located in a pleasant rural area outside of Evansville that will give their patients a sense of peace and serenity.

To see photos please visit the Brentwood Meadows Website and check out the rest of their website to learn more about them. This past week I spent four days in Evansville and trained the staff in the second clinical protocol they will need in order to meet the Relapse Prevention COE criteria. This training was a Gorski-CENAPS® Relapse Prvention Counseling competency certification training.

As Brentwood’s goal is to offer true multidisciplinary treatment they also arranged to have all disciplines represented at this intensive training including the Brentwood Meadows nursing staff. I also met for dinner meetings with the Director of Addiction, Ed Ross to help him devlop systems to best implement the Gorski-CENAPS Model into Brentwood Meadows.

Brentwood Meadows continues to actively use the new Gorski/Blampied Cognit System. Cognit is a web-based psychoeducational system that also offers online education sessions, quizzes, self-awareness journaling, and outcome data tracking. Brentwood Meadows has niow been seeing patients for the past three weeks and as I met with several of the patients who have a chronic relapse history (as many as 8 treatment attempts) they were all extremely impressed and hopeful that this time they will learn the relapses prevention tools they so badly need.

In addition to offering training in relaspe prevention and denial management for addictive disorders, I have modified those processes for work with people living with chronic pain and coexisting disorders including addiction. 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.

If you would like to see my upcoming trainings and especially to learn about my 20 hour (three days) Addiction-Free Pain Management® Certification Training on December 7-9, 2009 in Sacramento California designed to teach treatment strategies for people living with chronic pain and coexisting disorders including disorders including addiction please Click Here and scroll down to the December 7-9, 2009 for the description and how to sign up.

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 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.