When a patient sees a pain management doctor, the patient may receive narcotic medications. Especially if the person has a chronic pain issue and there is no surgical answer, opiates may be part of the plan for a long time. There are significant potential side effects with opiate medications. Medical marijuana may help substantially with pain, however, it remains federally illegal and plenty of pain doctors will terminate patients who test positive for its use. Is this appropriate?

Patients dealing with neuropathic pain have a rough time with their pain. The reason is there is no surgical answer to the problem since “neuropathic” pain comes from a problem that is intrinsic to the nerve (inside it). If the problem was coming from something pinching on the nerve, then it may have a surgical answer such as just removing the offending agent. These neuropathies, as mentioned, have no surgical cure and need to be treated with medication. Here is a list of medications that may help the pain from acquired neuropathies.

One of the main issues when treating with narcotics is tolerance. As patients receive treatment chronically for their issue, the same amount of medication may begin to have less of a pain relief effect than previously. The result may be an increased dosing in order to achieve the same pain relief effect. As this tolerance issue repeats itself, the problem will happen over and over and eventually the patient will be taking extremely high doses of narcotics. Physicians will look at the patient’s size and disease process (e.g. degenerative disc disease), and the dosing will be out of proportion to both. So what are the ways to decrease narcotic needs in chronic pain patients?

Pain signals that something is wrong within the body. Acute pain is caused by an immediate trauma and acts as a warning signal. Chronic pain, on the other hand, is pain that lasts more than six months and interferes with your daily activities. Learn Dietary, Nutritional and Lifestyle Modifications that can make the difference in your daily life.

Pain management is a field where many practitioners get frustrated. In our clinic we see it all the time as a lot of the more difficult cases come in after they have seen everybody else and a chiropractor is their last resort. Chronic pain doesn’t always mean that we have to do more, sometimes what seems like a very little treatment can produce marvelous results.