Four Things Chronic Pain Patients Wish They Knew Earlier

February 25, 2021 / Thomas Cohn, MD

Many people describe their chronic pain management as a journey to find relief, and like any journey, there are things we wish we would have known earlier in the process. In today’s blog, we highlight four things that we’ve heard from some of our patients and others in the pain community that they wish they would have known earlier during their pain journey.

What Patients Wish They Would Have Known Earlier

Here’s a look at four sentiments that many patients say they wish they would have know earlier in the chronic pain management process:

1. It’s Not Just Physical – Chronic pain manifests itself in the physical form, but the underlying cause or contributing factors are not all physical. Chronic pain has strong emotional and psychological roots, so you need to make sure that you’re caring for more than just your physical health. If you’re under a lot of stress or you’re suffering from another mental health issue, it could be playing a role in the onset of your physical pain. If you only focus on the physical contributors to chronic pain, you may be ignoring promising treatment options.

2. You’re Not Alone – Chronic pain can leave you feeling isolated from the outside world, but it’s important to remember that you’re not alone. There are a number of ways to connect with others about your condition to help treat it and fight back against feelings of isolation. You can:

Connect with a pain management specialist for professional help.
Reach out to friends and family members for help or to talk, or to just take your mind of your condition.
Connect with others who are going through a similar situation in an online support group.

Know that you’re not alone in this process and that you should be relying on other people for support.

3. Your Mindset Matters – It’s also important to know that how you approach your chronic pain treatment can have an impact on its success. When you improve your mindset, you improve your outcomes. It’s obviously easier said than done, but try to focus on everything you’re doing to help you conquer your chronic pain, instead of looking at all the ways your chronic pain is affecting your life. You can start to take back control over your condition by approaching treatment with a positive and determined mindset. Talk to your pain specialist if you want extra help improving your mindset when it comes to your pain condition.

4. It’s About The Small Wins, Not Absolutes – We can never say with absolute certainty that we’ll be able to completely cure all aspects of your chronic pain condition, and while that is our goal, that’s not how you should always view your end goal. If you’re only ever focused on the existence of pain and not the fact that it’s getting better or you’re having fewer flareups, you’re only going to be discouraged in the face of progress. This discouragement can negatively impact your treatment and your long-term success. Instead, focus on small wins and celebrate them, and you’ll find it easier to keep on working hard to treat your chronic pain condition.

For more information, or for help with any of the above tips, reach out to Dr. Cohn’s office today.

The Updated Guidelines For Treating Children With Chronic Pain

February 18, 2021 / Thomas Cohn, MD

We often visualize chronic pain as a condition that only affects older individuals who have suffered a traumatic injury or whose bodies have been exposed to decades of stress and degeneration. While those groups do make up the majority of the people we treat for chronic pain, they are far from the only groups we help.

Another group that accounts for millions of cases of chronic pain throughout the United States is children. These cases can be much more complex, because oftentimes it’s not normal wear and tear that has caused their chronic condition. It can be caused by a number of other factors, like significant injury, genetic and growth plate defects, or a combination of psycho-social issues.

To continue to help provide the best care to children with chronic pain, the World Health Organization recently updated their 10 best practices for treating children with chronic pain. We take a look at the new recommendations and offer our insights in today’s blog.

10 Best Practices For Treating Chronic Pain In Children

According to the World Health Organization, here are the 10 best ways that chronic pain physicians can manage and treat the condition in children:

Children with chronic pain and their families and caregivers must be cared for from a biopsychosocial perspective; pain should not be treated simply as a biomedical problem.
The biopsychosocial model of pain recognizes pain as a complex multidimensional experience that is the result of interaction among biological, psychological and social factors. Pain management thus requires a multimodal, interdisciplinary and integrated approach.
A comprehensive biopsychosocial assessment is essential to inform pain management and planning. As a component of this assessment, healthcare providers should use age-, context- and culturally appropriate tools to screen for, and monitor, pain intensity and its impact on the quality of life of the child and family.
Children with chronic pain must have a thorough evaluation of any underlying conditions and access to appropriate treatment for those conditions, in addition to appropriate interventions for the management of pain.
Children presenting with chronic pain should be assessed by healthcare providers who are skilled and experienced in the evaluation, diagnosis and management of chronic pain.
Management, whether with physical therapies, psychological or pharmacological interventions, or combinations thereof, should be tailored to the child’s health; underlying condition; developmental age; physical, language and cognitive abilities; and social and emotional needs.
Care of children with chronic pain should be child- and family-centered. That is, the child’s care should focus on family values, cultural preferences and resources available.8. Families and caregivers must receive timely and accurate information. Shared decision-making and clear communication are essential to good clinical care. Communication with patients should correspond to their cognitive, development, and language abilities.
The child and their family and caregivers should be treated in a comprehensive and integrated manner: all aspects of the child’s development and well-being must be attended to, including their cognitive, emotional and physical health. Moreover, the child’s educational, cultural and social needs and goals must be addressed as part of the care management plan.
In children with chronic pain, an interdisciplinary, multi-modal approach should be adopted which is tailored to the needs and desires of the child, family and caregivers, and to available resources. The biopsychosocial model of pain supports the use of multiple modalities to address the management of chronic pain.

To sum up these recommendations, a pain management specialist who is familiar with chronic pain in children needs to be able to assess the physical and social constructs that go into the expression of a pain condition. From there, the specialist needs to be able to effectively communicate with both the child and their families and provide solutions and ideas tailored to each, taking into account their age, education level, values, cultural needs and access to certain types of care. Pain management needs to be an ever-changing collaboration between the patient, the physician, their family and their care team.

Needless to say, treating chronic pain conditions in children is a tall task, and one that you need to trust to just the right physician. You need a physician who is going to put in the time and the effort needed to help treat the underlying cause, not just alleviate the symptoms. It’s hard work, but it’s arguably the most rewarding work in our field when you can help put an end to a child’s pain. Dr. Cohn has extensive experience doing this for children with a range of chronic pain conditions, and he’d like to help your child find a solution to their pain.

For more information, or for assistance in treating your child’s pain condition, reach out to Dr. Cohn’s office today.

Combat Chronic Pain By Improving Your “Zest” For Life

February 10, 2021 / Thomas Cohn, MD

zest A new study focusing on the psychology of chronic pain recently revealed that intentionally training certain character strengths could possibly help patients reduce or overcome their chronic pain condition.

The desire to learn more about this possible connection was driven by the idea that chronic pain can suck the joy and satisfaction out of many of life’s pursuits. Researchers posited that if chronic pain can influence our quality of life and some of our daily character traits, the reverse may also be true, in that focusing on developing character traits that define us could in fact help a person gain more control over their chronic pain.

While that may sound a bit far fetched, when you break it down with some examples, the theory seems to hold some water. For example, someone who heavily relies on humor or a very honest person may be better able to deal with the totality of their chronic pain condition than someone without those personality traits because of the psychology that drives these character traits.

Which Character Traits Help With Chronic Pain Control?

To get a better understanding of which character traits may have more influence on a person’s ability to control their chronic pain condition, researchers asked 491 chronic pain patients to complete a survey about their pain severity, how it impacts their physical function and their self-efficacy (their ability to engage in normal daily activities despite pain). Additionally, patients were asked to complete a self-assessment of their character strengths, which included 24 different character strengths as defined by a previous study. Those 24 different character strengths were:

Creativity
Curiosity
Judgment
Love of learning
Perspective
Bravery
Perseverance
Honest
Zest
Love
Kindness
Social Intelligence
Teamwork
Fairness
Leadership
Forgiveness
Humility
Prudence
Self-regulation
Appreciation
Gratitude
Hope
Humor
Spirituality

Interestingly, some character traits were associated with greater pain self-efficacy in the face of higher pain severity and functional loss than others. The three best traits for chronic pain self-efficacy were:

Zest
Perseverance
Hope

While the three lowest were:

Appreciation
Creativity
Leadership

So, on that note, researchers pondered if working to improve one’s “zest” could in turn help them better manage their chronic pain condition. Zest, as the researchers write, “is characterized by a sense of vitality and ‘aliveness’ in their own individual lives, as well as having the ability to invigorate and energize the people around them.”

During a two-week intervention, 81 participants were asked to either work on cultivating their zest for life or another neutral condition and given instructions on how they could improve these characteristics. Both groups had similar pain levels at the beginning of the two weeks, and both groups reported less pain and functional improvement by the end of the study. However, only the patients in the zest group reported an increase in pain self-efficacy.

While the research is small and limited, it certainly is interesting. If you’re working to combat a chronic pain condition, follow the traditional methods but also work on improving your zest for life. It’s easier said than done, but by trying to become more enthusiastic for life and using your energy to the fullest degree, you may notice an improvement in your self-efficacy as it relates to your pain condition!

For more information, or for help with your chronic pain condition, reach out to Dr. Cohn’s office today.

The Three Components To Successfully Conquering Chronic Pain

January 26, 2021 / Thomas Cohn, MD

Conquering chronic pain is a daily battle, and it’s not something that is always easy to handle. In fact, if you don’t have the right support systems or partners by your side, it can be very difficult to overcome a chronic pain condition. In our experience, we’ve found that people who have three specific components during their chronic pain treatment have a higher likelihood of success. In today’s blog, we take a closer look at the three components to successfully conquering a chronic pain condition.

Three Pillars To Conquering Chronic Pain

The triangle is the strongest shape in nature, so if you view these three key components as parts of a triangle, it can help you visual how they can help make up the foundation for chronic pain treatment. Here are the three key components for successfully conquering chronic pain.

Yourself – Successfully managing a chronic pain condition begins with yourself. Not only do you need to want to get better, you have to actively work towards achieving it. Wanting it without taking tangible steps to reach this goal isn’t going to be effective. There’s no magic pill you can take to solve your chronic pain, it’s going to take active modalities like exercise, physical therapy and stretching techniques. Understanding this, and taking ownership of your role in managing your chronic pain condition will help you move the needle in the right direction each day. Educate yourself, commit to treatment and lean on others when you find yourself struggling in order to do your part to overcome chronic pain.

Your Doctor – Finding a pain management specialist who understands your condition, who really listens to your concerns and who won’t stop until they’ve helped solve your pain is another key component to chronic pain management. There are plenty of doctors who will prescribe pain medications and help treat the symptoms of your condition, but those won’t help you on a long-term basis. You need to find a doctor who works hard to diagnose the root problem and develop a treatment plan suited to your individual needs. They also need to be willing to reevaluate the patient and update their treatment recommendations as things change, because chronic pain is a complex issue that can change over time. If you’re not satisfied with your professional pain care, reach out to Dr. Cohn’s office and see what it’s like to work with a pain specialist who is committed to seeing the problem through.

Your Support System – Finally, it’s important to have a support system in place when things get difficult. This could be in the form of family, friends or an online support group. Some people enjoy confiding in those who are close to them, while others feel like they don’t want to be a burden and don’t want to lay their problems on people who can’t relate. Find what works for you and really work to find a support system that can help you when things aren’t going great. You’ll have bad days, but having a good support system in place can make it easier to bounce back and string together more good days than bad. If you need help developing a support system, talk to your pain specialist about online or in-person support groups, or open up to family members. And don’t be afraid to be a support system for others in your life who are going through their own issues, be it divorce, a health issue or some other problem. Lean on others, and be a rock for others who need support, and you’ll find it easier to manage your chronic pain condition.

For more information or for help with your chronic pain condition, reach out to Dr. Cohn’s office today.

The Long Term Consequences Of Untreated Chronic Pain

January 18, 2021 / Thomas Cohn, MD

Chronic pain is something we’d rather not think about or deal with, but constantly trying to ignore your pain can lead to some unintended long term consequences. Left untreated, a chronic pain condition can lead to a decreased quality of life in a number of different ways. In today’s blog, we take a closer look at some of the potential long term consequences of untreated chronic pain.

Why You Need To Treat Your Chronic Pain

Here’s a look at five potential consequences of trying to power through a chronic pain condition without intervention.

1. More Pain – The most obvious potential pitfall of ignoring your pain condition is that you may be welcoming more widespread or intense pain. Sometimes your lifestyle has made your chronic pain condition worse, so if you keep doing the same things, it can lead to worsening pain. If your posture or work habits have led to chronic pain onset, and you don’t do anything to address it, odds are pain and dysfunction will only get worse.

2. Poor Sleep Quality – Chronic pain can affect our ability to get restful sleep, and if you don’t work to rectify the problem, you can string together weeks, months or years of less-than-ideal sleep. Over time this poor sleep quality can have plenty of physical consequences for your health. It can increase pain perception, contribute to a more sedentary lifestyle and increase your risk of future cognitive decline. Don’t string together long stretches of poor sleep quality because you didn’t treat your chronic pain condition.

3. Harder To Treat – While oftentimes not as serious as cancer, chronic pain conditions function much like a cancer diagnosis in that intervention techniques tend to have a higher rate of success when the condition is caught early and treatment begins sooner. The more damage caused by untreated chronic pain, the harder it is to successfully and fully treat the issue.

4. Poorer Cardiovascular Health – Studies have also shown that untreated chronic pain can actually have negative effects on your heart health. More specifically, chronic pain can decrease activity levels and increase stress, both of which can lead to a rise in your blood pressure. Over time, an elevated blood pressure level can leave you at risk for complications related to the condition, like coronary heart disease and even heart failure.

5. Decreased Quality of Life – All the above factors can play a role in the onset of the final factor, which is a decreased overall quality of life. Chronic pain affects our life in a myriad of ways, and added together they can all serve to make life a little less enjoyable. This gradual decline will only continue unless you take tangible steps to take control over your chronic pain condition, and Dr. Cohn and his team can help you do just that. For more information or for help with your chronic pain condition, reach out to his clinic today.