Blisstree » managing chronic pain

“Collaborative care” helps in chronic pain

Marijke Durning, RN — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 15:02:28 +0000

Living with chronic pain, non-cancer pain, often causes other problems besides the pain itself. These problems can range from physical issues, such as overusing one side of the body to protect the other, to psychological issues, such as depression, to social issues, such as isolation.

Chronic pain is also extremely difficult to treat in most cases. Acute pain is caused – usually – by an identifiable source and is fixable. This includes a broken bone, an incision from surgery, a toothache. But chronic pain is not as easily identified, not as specific, and often not fixable.

A new study, published in the latest issue of JAMA, has found that people living with chronic pain who took part in a collaborative care approach (patient and clinician education with symptom monitoring and feedback to the primary care physician) showed improvements in lowering the intensity of pain and pain-related disability, more so than did patients who received so-called “usual care.” This, depending on the type of pain, usually involves medications, maybe surgery, physiotherapy, and so on.

This finding was also seen among patients who had depression along with or as a result of their chronic pain.

You can read more about this interesting study in the journal’s press release, Program helps improve management of chronic pain.

Do you live with chronic pain? What have you tried to help it?

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Post from: Blisstree

“Collaborative care” helps in chronic pain

Herbal treatments and anesthesia

Marijke Durning, RN — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 19:09:58 +0000

If you take herbs to manage your chronic pain or illness, or you would like to, I have an interesting and helpful brochure for you. Herbs are natural, so many people feel that if it’s natural, it must be safe. That isn’t necessarily true. After all, there are many natural things in the world that are deadly if consumed by humans. So, it’s important to keep that in mind when deciding what types of herbs you may be interested in and from where you get them.

The American Society of Anesthesiologists have put out a brochure – in PDF format – called What You Should Know About Herbal and Dietary Supplement Use and Anesthesia.

It was found that nearly a third of patients who were having surgery used at least one type of herb or herbal supplement on a regular basis. While they may think to tell their doctors about prescription and over-the-counter medications, they may not think to tell the about any herbs, and this can be dangerous.

Image: Newscom

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Post from: Blisstree

Herbal treatments and anesthesia

Jury still out on management of chronic pain

Marijke Durning, RN — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 10:47:11 +0000

Ok – chronic pain is becoming a huge problem, from migraines and back pain to left over pain from treatments for chronic illnesses. In fact, pain like this affects up to 75 million people in the United States. If pain were a disease, that would be considered an epidemic: a pain epidemic. So – what gives in terms of treatment and management? Apparently, not much.

According to an article published in the June 2008 issue of the Journal of General of Internal Medicine, researchers write that they still don’t know what is best for which patients. Despite all the research into medications, procedures, and even alternative treatments – nothing.

You can read more about it in this public release: How best to treat chronic pain? The jury is still out.

Cheery thought, huh?

Image: Newscom

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Post from: Blisstree

Jury still out on management of chronic pain