When you live with chronic pain it can become very frustrating when you aren’t getting the pain relief you want. I know that when I experience a pain flare up my first reaction is I want it to stop—now! Many of the pain medications were developed for acute pain conditions. It can soon become very problematic when you use an acute pain plan on a chronic pain condition. Some people have a need for instant gratification (I want it and I want it now). Unfortunately, some of the acute pain medication leads people into this instant gratification trap—looking for the quick fix.

Telling the difference between appropriate and effective use of pain medication and the beginning of medication abuse can sometimes be difficult for you or your healthcare providers to determine. There are progressive stages of problematic use including medication dependency, medication abuse, pseudo-addiction, and finally addiction. The confusion and uncertainty of this progression is a challenge for both you and your treatment provider.

Some people living with chronic pain are afraid to take their narcotic (opiates etc.) medication because they have heard horror stories of people getting hooked on pain pills. This leads to a decision to under-medicate and to suffering as a result. If you happen to be in recovery for alcoholism or any other drug addiction the problem is even worse. If you under-medicate it could trigger a relapse. Of course the other side of the coin is overmedication; which could lead to rapid tolerance building and finally reactivation of your addiction.

To learn more about effective chronic pain management and what else to look out for please check out my article Overcoming Obstacles for Effective Chronic Pain Management that you can download for free on our Article page.

If you’d like to receive training for helping people with chronic pain and coexisting disorders, including addiction, I’m very excited to announce we are once again presenting my Addiction-Free Pain Management® Certification Training in Sacramento on February 24-26, 2011 in our new office space. To learn more about this and my other 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 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.
 

For the past several years as I have been researching and conceptualizing a new book and during that time I’ve also been dealing with a recurrence of my own chronic pain condition. A series of acute pain flare ups kept me in bed many mornings, unable to work or participate in normal activities; it had been over 20 years since I felt this kind of excruciating pain.

It was during my early 30s that I had a great passion, Karate. At that time I believed anything was possible. It was my dream to own a Karate Dojo and teach other people the art I had learned to love. I was also a construction worker. An accident over 28 years ago left me bedridden and I lost all hope of ever teaching the martial arts again. In fact, I became so depressed I seriously considered ending my life. Today I’m grateful I didn’t give into those feelings of hopelessness and a life of suffering. Instead, I made a decision to do whatever I needed to in order to live the best life I could with what I had. This became possible through an intense grieving process that took almost three years.

It would have been easy to start obsessing about my recent pain flare ups and fall into a black hole of depression. I was very close to slipping back into a “chronic pain trance.” This realization motivated me into action and I began to manage my pain by applying the seven steps covered in this new book. In it you will discover what these steps are, how they work, and most importantly how to apply them to your own pain condition.

The predominant focus in my new book, Freedom from Suffering: A Journey of Hope, is to help people develop a roadmap to effective pain management. People living with chronic pain will learn how to implement these seven steps that can lead them out of a life of hopelessness and suffering.

Remember, freedom from suffering is a right, but it is also a responsibility! 
 

To learn about the importance of using a team approach for effective chronic pain management please check out my article The Need for Multidisciplinary Chronic Pain Managaement that you can download for free on our Article page.

If you’d like to receive training for helping people with chronic pain and coexisting disorders, including addiction, I’m very excited to announce we are once again presenting my Addiction-Free Pain Management® Certification Training in Sacramento on February 24-26, 2011 again in our new office space. To learn more about this and my other upcoming trainings you can check out our Calendar page.

You can learn 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.