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!

Decoy Molecule Could Stymie Chronic Pain

January 18, 2018 / Thomas Cohn, MD

rna Researchers at the University of Texas at Dallas believe they have created a new weapon in the war against chronic pain. According to researchers, they say they’ve created an RNA-mimicking molecule that can block a series of pain sensations that normally occur after an injury. By studying how this molecule interacts with pain sensations, researchers believe they may be able to develop a new class of drugs that can prevent pain at the outset without increasing a person’s risk of addiction.

“Our results indicate that local treatment with the decoy can prevent pain and inflammation brought about by a tissue injury,” said study lead author Dr. Zachary Campbell.

He believes the findings are very important because chronic pain-related conditions are “the primary reason Americans are on disability.”

“Poorly treated pain causes enormous human suffering,” said Dr. Campbell, “as well as a tremendous burden on medical care systems and our society.”

Cutting In To Opioid Abuse

Opioid addiction and overdoses have increased in recent years as more people turn to pills to help manage their pain. In the right hands with the right dosage, opioids can play an integral role in a pain management plan. However, opioids can be a slippery slope to addiction if they are abused, which is why researchers are looking to develop new medications that are abuse deterrent.

Our current opioids have a major disadvantage in that they interact with areas of our brain that deal with reward and emotion. This can lead to a craving or addiction to the reward stimulus that the drugs provide, but by studying the artificial RNA-molecule, we may be able to develop drugs that stop pain in other areas of the body without crossing the brain-blood barrier.

This artificial molecule works in nociceptors, which are special cells at the injury site that help send pain signals to the brain. After the injury, RNA molecules begin the process of facilitating proteins that signal pain. By mimicking RNA, the decoy molecule can interrupt this process that makes these proteins, and reduce our body’s behavioral response to pain.

“When you have an injury, certain molecules are made rapidly. With this Achilles’ heel in mind, we set out to sabotage the normal series of events that produce pain at the site of an injury,” said. Dr. Campbell. “In essence, we eliminate the potential for a pathological pain state to emerge.”

This is certainly an interesting development, and I hope it opens up new ways to combat chronic pain. We’ll keep an eye out for more information about this protein in the coming years, as it may have big implications for how pain is managed.

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.