Going To Any Lengths for Effective Chronic Pain Management
An important part of developing an effective chronic pain management plan is obtaining an accurate understanding of what effective chronic pain management really means. I believe that effective 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 your thinking and feelings as well as changing any self-defeating behaviors and problematic social/family reactions; and
(3) A non-pharmacological (non-medication) pain management plan—developing safer ways to manage pain.
An effective chronic pain management plan starts with an accurate assessment of your presenting problems, your strengths, weaknesses, support system, as well as any obstacles that could sabotage your pain management. This usually requires a multi-disciplinary approach that includes an in-depth medical History and Physical by your doctor followed by appropriate diagnostic testing.
One of the first treatment decisions needs to be whether or not modification to your medication plan is necessary. If it is needed then you need to determine whether inpatient medical assist is necessary or you can do it on an outpatient basis with your doctor’s guidance. If modifications to your medications are made you may need some craving management tools to help you adhere to your new plan and ways, in addition to your medication, to handle pain flare ups.
The next step is to determine whether your pain is more Physiological vs. Psychological/Emotional. This is very important as you get into pain flare up management and prevention, so you implement the right type of interventions to help you at that point. Also you want to learn to identify and manage any resistance and denial issues regarding pain management and any payoffs for not having effective chronic pain management.
You need to develop and implement non-pharmacological pain management interventions. As you continue with your chronic pain management planning it is important to continue learning even more nonpharmacological, holistic pain management tools. Then you need to develop an initial relapse prevention plan that will help you identify your high-risk situations for ineffective pain management or self-sabotage. It is crucial to have a relapse prevention plan in place that addresses both your high risk pain situations as well as any core psychological or other coexisting issues such as depression.
To learn why not going to any lengths for effectivce chronic pain management is a big problem please check out my article Chronic Pain Management Needs More Than a Quick Fix that you can download for free on our Article page.
If you’d like to receive training for helping people with relapse prevention, I’m very excited to announce that the Gorski-CENAPS Corporation is presenting The Relapse Prevention Therapy44 Hour Certification Training in Ft. Lauderdale October 18-22, 2010. To learn more about this 5 day 44 hour training 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.
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