Did you know that Pain Awareness Month is celebrated every September? Yeah, neither did I – at least not until I read a post from WTNH in Hartford, CT. It turns out that there is a valuable lesson here.
I suspect most people do not know that September is Pain Awareness Month. Likewise, I also suspect most people do not know why chronic pain often proves so difficult to treat. Pain is one of the most difficult symptoms of all. And when it qualifies as a person’s medical condition rather than a symptom, treating it becomes much more difficult.
A Serious Problem in the U.S.
Just over 20% of U.S. adults experience chronic pain at some point. That amounts to more than 51 million people. Of the total, nearly 7% experience high-impact chronic pain that significantly limits their daily activities. To say that we have a serious problem in the U.S. is to state the obvious.
One of the difficulties in treating chronic pain is the lack of a concrete definition. The generally accepted definition among doctors and federal health officials is pain that is felt either daily or almost daily for a minimum of three months.
On the other hand, states with medical cannabis programs are more likely to define chronic pain in shorter terms. Some states are willing to go as little as three weeks. And then there is the question of experiencing pain ‘almost daily’. Who defines what that means?
A Symptom or a Condition
The next difficulty entreating chronic pain is understanding whether it is a symptom or a condition. If it is a symptom of something else, then the key to resolving pain is to treat that other issue. Treating the pain caused by facet joint syndrome is a perfect example.
A pain medicine doctor at Lone Star Pain Medicine in Weatherford, TX might diagnose a patient with facet joint syndrome in two or three joints of the lumbar spine. The doctor can turn to a variety of injection therapies to relieve the patient’s pain.
Sometimes pain is not a symptom. It is the condition. Here, fibromyalgia is a perfect example. Fibromyalgia is believed to be the result of an overactive nervous system that creates pain signals where they would not exist for other people. It is more difficult to treat because there is no known trigger. Pain is the condition itself.
The Pain Experience Is Personal
Perhaps the most important thing to note is that the pain experience is very personal. People have different pain thresholds. Mine is fairly high. A lot of painful experiences that would leave my family members not feeling so well don’t bother me. I bring it up only because it demonstrates that even within the small circle that is my family, there are different pain experiences.
With different pain experiences come different responses to medical treatments. When I have a headache, it doesn’t respond well to aspirin or ibuprofen. I generally need to take acetaminophen. My wife is different. Her headaches respond well to ibuprofen.
People with osteoarthritis generally respond favorably to exercise, physical therapy, and dietary changes. Yet there are some who don’t. They can only find relief through surgery or an alternative therapy – like platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injections.
Individualized Treatments Are the Way to Go
So, how can we do a better job treating chronic pain? We can start by ditching the one-size-fits-all approach American medicine is so noted for. Instead, individualized treatment plans are the way to go. People need to be treated according to their own circumstances, pain experiences, and responses.
