complementary medicine

Complementary Approaches Beneficial For Chronic Pain Patients

/ Thomas Cohn, MD

meditation painNew research out of the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York found that complementary treatment approaches can help curb pain and in some instances reduce the need for opioids in patients with chronic pain.

“Opioid misuse and addiction are a major public health issue in the United States, and approximately 70 percent of individuals who use opioids on a long-term basis have a musculoskeletal disorder, such as low back pain or arthritis,” said Maggie Wimmer, coordinator of Programs and Outcomes, Public and Patient Education at HSS. “To address this epidemic, Hospital for Special Surgery implemented a Pain and Stress Management program in its orthopedic clinic to enhance patient knowledge and encourage complementary practices as alternatives to medication.”

For the study, the center recruited 122 participants and asked them to participate in a couple different meditation techniques. Patients took part in a monthly in-person meditation workshop and a weekly meditation conference call where they practiced mindful breathing techniques and other meditation activities. Patients also completed a monthly survey on a number of factors, including pain and stress levels, their understanding of complementary medical approaches and how often they practiced the techniques in their own time.

Study Findings

After analyzing the data, researchers uncovered:

  • 98 percent of patients said they were satisfied with the program.
  • 95 percent said the program increased their understanding of complementary treatments and how they can help manage pain and stress.
  • 93 percent said they would recommend the program to others.
  • 1 in 3 patients reported using alternative techniques five or more times in the previous week in place of medication, and 11 percent used the techniques three or four times in place of medication.
  • More than 50 percent of participants reported that their mindful breathing techniques helped them manage their stress and chronic pain.
  • During monthly in-person sessions, many participants also reported an improvement in daily function, calmness and an improved state of mind.

“The results indicate that alternative approaches are effective in reducing pain and stress, and in improving self-management and general well-being,” said Robyn Wiesel, associate director, Public and Patient Education at HSS.

This is something that we’ve been preaching on the blog for years now. You need to have more than one way to treat your pain condition, and these complementary approaches can work wonders. Whether it’s yoga, balance training, mindful meditation, cycling or swimming, find an activity that allows you to de-stress and strengthen your body. Not only will you have physical and psychological benefits, but it may reduce your reliance on opioids!

The Importance Of Complementary Medicine

/ Thomas Cohn, MD

As we talked about in our blog post on Tuesday, there’s no simple way to treat chronic pain. No magic pill is going to cure your pain. Instead, you need to have a comprehensive and multifaceted approach to controlling your chronic pain. Sometimes, that approach includes complementary medicine options.

We are a traditional pain clinic, but it would be wrong to simply ignore the benefits of some complementary options. We’ve talked about the benefits of acupuncture on our blog in the past, and our most viral post isn’t exactly a traditional medicine method.

Complementary Medicine Benefits

Mindfulness, acupuncture and other complementary medicine methods are key components to finding the best way to treat chronic pain, and that’s a sentiment shared by our friends at Burning Nights CRPS. In fact, they believe in the benefits of complementary approaches so much that they designed a wonderful infographic to help inform others. Take a look at the infographic below, and be sure to check out their site for more helpful information on how to best beat chronic pain!

complementary medicine

Pain Management Needs To Be A Complimentary Approach

/ Thomas Cohn, MD

Complementary medicineA recent publication in Mayo Clinic Proceedings explored the benefits of complementary therapy in the greater picture of pain management. This is a subject we’ve preached on the blog time and time again; There is no magic pill for chronic pain, and you need to put in the effort to have the best results. Oftentimes this comes in the form of other activities in conjunction with the standard care of rest, rehab, physical therapy, etc. Some of these complementary methods include:

“Medications may not completely relieve chronic pain or can produce unwanted side effects, including the potential for addiction. Thus, many people may turn to complementary health approaches to help manage their pain,” said Richard L. Nahin, PhD, MPH, lead epidemiologist at the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health.

Complementary Medicine Benefits

Without going into too much detail, the article looked at a number of complementary approaches to common chronic ailments. What they found was that acupuncture and yoga were beneficial for individuals with back pain, acupuncture and tai chi had benefits for knee osteoarthritis, and massage therapy was proven useful for individuals with cervical spine and neck pain. Considering that more than 120 million Americans deal with some sort of chronic pain, these complementary approaches have the potential to positively affect millions of people.

This beneficial link is important because unfortunately many people have to pay out of pocket for some of these treatment techniques. In fact, national data suggests that people pay more than $8.5 billion annually for out of pocket complementary treatments for back pain alone. Now that there’s a link between these approaches and chronic pain improvement, there may soon be a push to make some of these options at least partially covered by insurance. It may require insurance companies to spend a little more in the short-term, but if it helps people recover faster and more fully, it could greatly reduce expenses in the long run.

We need to continue investing money into chronic pain research to find the best methods to treat pain, reduce costs and help patients.