Word: reliefer
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...second big reason for the widespread failure to find adequate pain relief is that most of us seek it entirely in a pill bottle--or two or three. The quest for pharmaceutical salvation is misguided to begin with, say doctors at the nation's most sophisticated pain-management centers. The lesson they have to teach us all is that chronic pain must be attacked on many fronts. Drugs are important, but they are just one weapon in the arsenal...
That's been true for Bill Highland, a retired electrician from Yuba City, Calif., who for the past two years has been battling searing pain in his shoulder blade and armpit from shingles. Highland tried a variety of drugs, but they brought only temporary relief. Finally he was referred to pain psychologist Ingela Symreng at the Pain Management Center at the University of California, Davis, to learn techniques that would help him control his pain. Symreng teaches patients relaxation exercises, breathing skills, guided imagery (focusing on pleasant mental images) and distraction techniques. Highland, 83, quickly became a master of deep...
...pain, especially in chronic cases. "We know that when you image the brain, the areas that light up when you experience pain include parts of the brain involved in emotions," says Fishman. That is why learning to relieve fear, anxiety and depression related to pain actually helps bring relief, probably by activating the body's own pain-killing chemicals...
...cites the case of an elderly woman with arthritis in her back who preferred taking the oral narcotic Vicodin to using a more potent opioid drug delivered through a patch. "The Vicodin wasn't nearly as powerful as the opioid patch," says Palmer, "yet it gave her more pain relief. That tells you this is a patient who wants control. In some patients the psychological impact of being able to open a pill bottle, pull out a pill and take it gives them some sense of control in their life. If you have a pump sending medication into your spine...
...comprehensive pain-management centers are so good at providing relief, why aren't more doctors following their lead? The sad fact is that virtually every trend in medicine--from the training doctors get to the treat-'em-fast pressures of managed care to the way insurance companies cover or fail to cover alternative therapies--works against this. "We don't teach medical students enough about pain, even though it's the most common reason people go to doctors," complains Fishman of U.C. Davis. "We've really wandered from a basic philosophy in medicine, where you cure what...