The medical community often refers to the process of ‘treating chronic pain’ as though chronic pain is similar to a broken bone. Apply the right treatment and it goes away, right? Wrong. Although chronic pain may eventually subside, there is no shortage of people who live with it for their entire lives. Treating it is not about a cure. It is about improving a patient’s quality of life.
When chronic pain is a lifelong thing, treatment is more about management than anything else. Pain doctors work with patients on management strategies to improve quality of life, minimizing the pain experience, improve physical function, and develop coping techniques when pain cannot be ignored.
A person who has never experienced long-term chronic pain may have trouble grasping the management aspect. People who do not live with daily pain often do not understand that it impacts nearly every area of life. But it does. And the impacts can be felt very deeply.
Managing With Medications
Medications are often the go-to recommendation among GPs and family doctors. Pain medicine specialists tend to look at other treatments in addition to medications. Even plant-based alternatives might be on the table. A good example is medical cannabis.
Medical cannabis is not an option nationwide, at least not yet. Only 38 states have approved it. Utah is one of them, and the people behind the Utahmarijuana.org website say that many patients who apply for their medical cannabis cards turn to medical cannbis to treat chronic pain.
Whether a doctor recommends traditional prescription medications, plant-based medicines, or alternative treatments including physical therapy, acupuncture, etc., pain management is still the primary goal. The better a person’s pain is managed, the greater the chances that this person will experience a high quality of life.
Why Improved Quality Matters
You might wonder why quality of life matters to a pain medicine doctor. After all, the quality of a person’s life doesn’t seem to be a medical issue per se. What you might not know is that a person’s perception of life quality can have a profound impact on their physical and mental health.
Experiencing a high quality of life goes hand-in-hand with general happiness and contentment. For a chronic pain patient, this has big implications. Think of it this way: when chronic pain contributes to a poor quality of life perception, a patient’s general happiness and contentment diminishes. Stress and anxiety increase as a result. And as they do, they can actually make the pain experience feel worse.
We already know that stress and anxiety contribute to all sorts of health problems. Significant stress contributes to cardiovascular disease. It can cause or worsen mental health conditions. The list goes on and on. There is such a strong link between the physical and mental experience that people suffering from both chronic pain and a poor quality of life are often diagnosed with other conditions as well.
Everyone Deserves the Best Life
The proverbial icing on the cake here is the fact that everyone deserves the best life possible. Everyone should have a chance at living the best life they possibly can, irrespective of things like chronic pain. While a chronic pain patient has a condition that could potentially diminish life quality, there is no reason that this person has to settle for less. Nor should they.
Treating chronic pain is often more about management than an actual cure. Managing chronic pain is designed to improve a patient’s quality of life by restoring function, offering a measure of relief, and providing hope. If you are a chronic pain patient, you understand this perfectly.