Is Medication Really The Answer To Your Pain?

By: Melody Rabor-Dizon

 

It has been incessantly ingrained in our heads to address the 5th vital sign in the healthcare world by Joint Commission Accreditation, Health Care Certification (JCAHO) – the word P-A-I-N. Either you will be shown a scale of how bad your pain is from 0-10, zero being no pain, to 10 as having the worst of pain. Or if language or speech is an issue, a facial picture will be flashed at you indicating the level of pain to which the patient can point at. After all, pain is what and when the patient says it is. It is very subjective and very personal.

We make sure that as healthcare professional, we prepare the patient mentally to any kind of sensation, visual orientation, pictures, videos or testimonies from other patients to whatever procedure they are about to undertake. The most frequent question I get is, “Is this going to hurt”? Post-operative pain is understandable and must be truly catered to even after patients go home. But the leading pain specialists from Las Vegas Recovery Center states that, opioid painkillers will only work for the first three months after which, its efficacy is not as potent anymore.

The Recovery Center did a study to their patients regarding long-term use of opioid and proved that patients were in more pain when they were on opioid than when they were not. There is a lot to be said about that. Maybe because when we anticipate something to come, it almost seems like we are telling our brain to activate our pain nerve receptors to create pain? I don’t know, as I am not a pain specialist but they are as baffled. The medical director of the Las Vegas Recovery Center, Dr. Mel Pohl, states, that it actually drives their pain level up when these patients are on opioid and knowing that they get another dosage in a few hours.

Dr. Mel Pohl, a board-certified family physician who specializes in treating chronic pain and co-occurring addiction is the author, with Katherine Ketcham, of The Pain Antidote: The Proven Program to Help You Stop Suffering from Chronic Pain, Avoid Addiction to Painkillers-and Reclaim Your Life, claims that there are other ways to deal with pain non-pharmacologically, to which I am a firm advocate to. I do understand, however, medications are there to help some and may work for some but not all. Medications are not the answer to all our pain. Because some pain may truly be not that of a bodily pain, but to something other than. Some pain known as psychogenic pain is used when all other causes of pain has been ruled out. It is when the body actually believes it is in actual pain. And, for years, the body will only believe that painkiller drugs can only take away that pain – we lost so many people to that kind of pain, the most recent one was, PRINCE. There are other psychosocial issues pain to which psychotherapy, anti-depressants and non-narcotic painkillers are the treatment of choice.

Yet, I also have some patients that by hook or by crook, they will not take any kind of pain medication too, because of fear of addiction. Let me briefly clarify the difference, the levels of dependency vs abuse to addiction. Medication tolerance occurs when the person no longer responds to the drug in the way that person initially responded. Medication dependence is characterized by the symptoms of tolerance and withdrawal to a physical dependence on a substance. Substance abuse, also known as drug abuse, is a patterned use of a drug in which the user consumes the substance in amounts or with methods which are harmful to themselves or others, and is a form of substance-related disorder. Medication addiction causes people to act irrationally when they don’t have the substance they are addicted to in their system.

Non-Drug options:

1. Massage

2. Relaxation techniques

3. Acupuncture

4. Physical therapy

5. Pet therapy

6. Gel packs

7. Good nutrition – improper nutrition leads to inflammation

8. Exercise

9. Meditation – mindful awareness I end with this.

This is one part of Dr. Pohl’s book that he mentioned. Over and over again, we can never go wrong with the kind of food we eat. After all, FOOD IS ALSO MEDICINE WE PUT IN OUR BODY. THINK ABOUT IT.

“The connection between chronic pain and diet revolves around inflammation. Foods that increase inflammation and chronic pain include preservatives, sugar and grains, fried foods, artificial sweeteners and some vegetables like tomatoes, potatoes and eggplant. Foods that reduce inflammation include certain fruits like red grapes, cherries, blueberries and cranberries, walnuts, chia seeds, green vegetables including kale, watercress, spinach and broccoli, green tea, oily fish and cocoa. It is imperative to drink enough water. I strongly recommend avoiding toxins such as nicotine and alcohol.”

*Chicagoans are wise consumers nowadays can download apps, check menus, restaurants, recipes with antiinflammatory food.