Five Non-Opioid Options For Chronic Pain Relief

September 19, 2019 / Thomas Cohn, MD

Chronic pain is one of the most complex health conditions to treat because it is so unique to the individual. What works for one person isn’t guaranteed to work for another, and sometimes many different treatment options are required in combination with one another in order to provide relief.

In our experience, painkillers and opioids can be effective for the right patient when used in combination with other treatment options, but they aren’t a good primary source of treatment. What we mean by that is we’ve never seen a patient get better solely by taking an opioid. They may be helpful in conjunction with dietary changes and other interventions, but they aren’t a great stand-alone option because they don’t address the root problem. Because of this, we want to share five chronic pain treatment options that can treat the root cause of pain and help you find relief. Below, we share five non-opioid treatment options that may be effective for your chronic pain condition.

Treating Chronic Pain Without Meds

This is a general guide of some treatment options we’ve found effective for some common types of chronic pain. For individualized care and a treatment plan tailored to your specific condition, please reach out to our office.

1. Exercise – Exercise is one of the most basic treatment options for some types of chronic pain. Exercise pushes healthy blood through your body, which can help structures function properly, and it works to strengthen supportive muscle groups. If back pain is causing discomfort, some low-stress exercises like swimming, walking or yoga may be just what you need to calm spinal nerve compression or strengthen key muscle groups that can contribute to pain.

2. Physical Therapy – A close cousin of exercise is physical therapy. PT is great for a number of different patients, but it’s especially helpful for those chronic pain patients who are battling arthritis or joint issues. Physical therapy helps you reestablish mobility and range of motion in the joint, and it can help prevent the further progression of arthritis, keeping you more mobile. Physical therapy works by targeting specific areas with certain exercises, stretches and movements.

3. Tens Unit – We’ve talked about TENS units on the blog in the past, but they can be just what the doctor ordered for the right patient. TENS stands for transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation, and it is a small device that transmits electrical signals to drown out pain signals. Many of them are widely used among patients who suffer chronic headaches or migraines. You can learn more about different units and their uses in the above link.

4. Spinal Cord Stimulation – Spinal cord stimulation is another topic we’ve talked about in the past. They work similar to a TENS unit in that they provide electrical stimulation to drown out painful nerve signals, but these can be implanted inside the patient and controlled by a device to provide different types of stimulation as pain develops. New technology means these devices can even be recharged while still in the body. Again, you can learn more about this option in our expanded post in the above link.

5. Nerve Blocks – Finally, Dr. Cohn’s offers nerve blocks and corticosteroid injections for patients who are dealing with certain chronic pain conditions. For chronic muscles spasms or irritated spinal nerves, a calming injection can provide relief and allow patients the ability to pursue other active treatments, like PT or exercise. They aren’t always a very good stand-alone long-term solution, but they can be paired with other techniques to provide symptom relief.

Have Chronic Pain? There’s An App For That

June 15, 2018 / Thomas Cohn, MD

Each day, millions of Americans battle a chronic pain condition or rehab a previous injury. If you’re one of them, you’ve probably done your research online and listened to your doctor’s instructions about caring for the injury. Those are great ways to manage your condition, but technology is making it easier for us to stay connected with our care plan when we’re on the go.

If you have a smartphone, you’re only a couple of clicks away from being able to access thousands of different apps that are designed to help you control and treat your pain condition. But how can you sort the good apps from the ones that aren’t worth your time?

The Best Chronic Pain Apps

To answer that question, we turn to our friends at Burning Nights CRPS. We’ve shared some of their stuff on our blog in the past, and they always share useful information for chronic pain sufferers. Their latest infographic is no different. In this infographic, they take a look at six of the most useful apps for chronic pain sufferers.

From helping to coordinate a physical therapy plan to helping you track your progress with a pain journal, the apps highlighted in this infographic can be very useful to anyone who is trying to put a chronic pain condition behind them. Give it a look, and don’t forget to check out Burning Nights CRPS for more information on all things chronic pain!

Chronic Pain and Your Credit Score – An Interesting Link

December 4, 2017 / Thomas Cohn, MD

Chronic pain has many obvious drawbacks, but it also has many hidden consequences. We know that chronic pain can be costly to treat, but new research suggests that it can have a severe impact on your buying power or your ability to secure credit.

According to a new study published in the National Pain Report, a survey of 840 chronic pain sufferers found that a whopping 63 percent were unable to secure credit. As you might have guessed, this has far-reaching consequences for pain sufferers.

Chronic Pain and Your Credit

Researchers said that there were a number of different reasons why chronic pain sufferers had difficulty securing credit. Some of the most common challenges individuals with chronic pain run into credit-wise include:

Difficulty obtaining credit because chronic pain makes it hard or impossible for them to maintain employment.
High interest on credit cards or loans that they are able to secure.
Difficulty getting a cell phone contract.
Inability to get approved for a home loan or apartment rental.
Inability to secure utilities, like electricity, propane or gas.
Difficulty getting automobile or life insurance, and when they do, rates are often very high.

“The inability to secure credit brings a long list of challenges, particularly for those who also suffer with medical conditions, like pain,” said Jim Shanahan, President and CEO of Prepaidian, Inc, a company who specializes in Prepaid debit cards that are intended to provide buying power for people who are unable to secure credit. “You may be unable to get a checking account, or pay exorbitant fees on those accounts, in addition to trying to manage medical bills.”

How To Improve Your Credit While Dealing With Chronic Pain

Improving your credit score while you deal with chronic pain isn’t always easy, but there are things you can do to improve it bit by bit. For example, always try to make your payments on time, even if it’s just the minimum amount. Paying on time helps to improve your credit score. Secondly, don’t be in a rush to close your accounts. Closing accounts, even ones you don’t use, negatively impacts your credit score because it limits your buying power. If you absolutely have to close out an account, see if you can increase your line of credit on a different account. Even if you don’t plan to spend that much, your credit score improves when you have more potential buying power at your disposal.

Secondly, try to settle up past due accounts. Odds are if you’re willing to pay at least a portion of the bill, the credit card company will be willing to erase the debt, because getting some money is better than getting nothing. You can call in and see if they’ll waive late fees or some interest charges, because it never hurts to ask, and if waiving a fee gets the credit card company their money, oftentimes they’ll be willing to compromise. It never hurts to ask.

Lastly, if medical bills from chronic pain are stacking up, try to get on a payment plan with your health center or insurance company. Making regular payments and working towards a zero balance will do wonders for your credit score. Explain your situation, and people may be more willing to help.

5 Tips For Exercising With Chronic Pain

October 13, 2017 / Thomas Cohn, MD

Exercise can help prevent and manage chronic pain, but chronic pain can also make it difficult to exercise on a regular basis. However, if you keep some tips in mind, you may find it easier to get through your exercise routine even if you are plagued by chronic pain.

Today, we share five tips that can make exercise easier even if you are battling a chronic pain condition.

Chronic Pain and Exercise

Here are five tips for making your exercise routine a little more bearable when you’re dealing with chronic pain.

1. Avoid The Wrong Activities – Try to get your exercise in by being mindful of where pain exists and which activities overstress these areas. You want to strengthen certain areas while avoiding overstressing painful areas. For example, if you have chronic low back pain, exercise activities like cycling or canoeing may put excess stress on your lumbar spine. Don’t partake in activities that will make the problem worse.

2. Find Your Pace – Yoga classes or group exercise routines can help make exercising more fun, but not if you’re struggling to keep up. Go at your own pace and do not worry what other people are doing. If you’re dead set on working out with a group or another person, find someone who closely matches your ability and who will be willing to scale things back or stop altogether if pain makes exercise too difficult.

3. Aqua Therapy – We’ve pushed the benefits of aqua therapy in the past, and we think it’s a great option for chronic pain sufferers because the water’s natural buoyancy helps to take stress and pressure off our joints. Also, the water provides natural resistance, which makes it easier to strengthen different structures that you might not be able to as easily on land.

4. Balanced Routine – While we want you to find what works for you, it’s also important that you find some balance in your workout routine. You need to focus on your cardiovascular health, aerobic conditioning and strength training in order to best keep chronic pain at bay.

5. Accept That Not Every Day Is Going To Be Great – This happens with everybody, so don’t get discouraged if you just don’t seem to “have it” on any given day. As long as you are up and trying to improve your physical health, that day is a win. It’s not going to be easy, and it’s not always going to go smoothly, but if you’re making a conscious effort to exercise 4-5 times a week, your body will thank you for it.

For more tips on how to exercise with chronic pain, or to talk to a doctor about your chronic pain condition, reach out to Dr. Cohn today.

Pain Management – Out With The New, In With The Old?

October 2, 2017 / Thomas Cohn, MD

Comprehensive chronic pain programs (CPP) have a long history, and they used to be the mainstay of treating pain. Up until the mid 1990’s, they were present across the country and there were several hundred present in the United States. With the widespread adoption of the use of opioids and the ratcheting down of medical expenses by insurance companies, many of these programs were eventually forced out of existence.

These programs cost between $5,000 and $20,000 and sometimes involved 2-4 weeks or more of inpatient care. In retrospect, considering the cost of surgeries and medications, these programs were probably a cheap investment for high quality proven outcomes. Today there are very few of these programs left – less than 100 nationwide – and we are suffering from a crisis of pain management and opioid addiction. In Minnesota, there only several left in the state.

Comprehensive Chronic Pain Programs

The typical chronic pain program is a behavioral based approach to pain with an emphasis on weaning off of all opioids. Nonaddictive medications are fine, and surgical or interventional approaches to pain are usually not a part of the program. Most of the emphasis is on changing behavior as it relates to pain. There is guided physical therapy, often aquatics, dietary advice and significant amounts of group and some individual psychological intervention toward the effects of pain on mood and activity level. The goal is to increase activity and function and show a person that their pain levels are often minimally impacted.

These programs are most successful for those whom have withdrawn from life and interactions. A typical patient in one of these programs is depressed, isolated, sedentary and not working. They often are very focused on taking medications and feel their pain prevents them from doing anything. However, to be successful in such a program, they must want to change their lifestyle.

Unfortunately, if you have chronic pain and are maintaining function in life, these programs often have little to offer. For a person who is well adjusted, with multiple outside of the home interests, working full-time, trying to exercise, doing meditation and not taking opioids, these programs have minimal things to offer that would be worthwhile. Pain management for many complex chronic pain patients is often much more difficult. Further, there are very few physicians in general who specialize in pain, and even fewer who have the interest, knowledge and experience to deal with many of these people.

Finding a chronic pain program is often not too difficult, and asking your insurance company or physician will probably get you pointed in the right direction. Finding a good pain physician that will meet your needs can be extremely challenging. A good place to start is a Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Physician that is board certified in pain. After that, look for recommendations and then visit with the doctor to see if they can meet your needs. Finding the right physician is often difficult, and unfortunately there are no easy answers when it comes to pain management.