{"id":5678,"date":"2014-04-14T06:32:36","date_gmt":"2014-04-14T10:32:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/?p=5678"},"modified":"2016-11-20T13:52:28","modified_gmt":"2016-11-20T17:52:28","slug":"medication-for-pain-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/5678\/medication-for-pain-series\/","title":{"rendered":"<i>Medication for Pain<\/i> Series"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"r1PostCPBlock\">\n<div>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">This is a\u00a0series about <strong>medications for pain<\/strong>. For each medication class,\u00a0we&#8217;ll cover:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" aligncenter\" style=\"width: 162px; height: 134px;\" src=\"http:\/\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/22\/30582074_dda78f5ea5.jpg?v=0\" alt=\"\" width=\"234\" height=\"157\" \/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>what are your choices?<\/li>\n<li>how do various medications work?<\/li>\n<li>what are the pros and cons of different types of medication?<\/li>\n<li>how about side effects?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I hope\u00a0this information will be helpful to you, both to better understand the current medications you&#8217;re on, as well as learning about options to consider with your pain management physician. As always when I discuss medication or any treatment, <em>discuss these ideas with your doctor<\/em>. Don&#8217;t make any changes to your treatment by yourself. These articles are intended as information only, and not as medical advice (see my <a href=\"http:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/resources\/disclaimer.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">disclaimer<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p><strong>These are the medications and topics\u00a0we&#8217;ll cover during this series:<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<ol>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/5681\/medication-for-pain-series-nsaids-anti-inflammatories\/\">NSAIDS (Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs)<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/6036\/medications-for-pain-series-anticonvulsants-2\/\">Anticonvulsants<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/6038\/medications-for-pain-series-antidepressants-2\/\">Antidepressants<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/6052\/medication-for-pain-series-anesthestics\/\">Anesthetics<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/6055\/medication-for-pain-series-ketamine\/\">NMDA receptor antagonists (e.g. Ketamine)<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/6070\/medications-for-pain-series-muscle-relaxants-2\/\">Muscle relaxants<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/6073\/medications-for-pain-series-blood-pressure-medication\/\">Blood Pressure Medication<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/6093\/medication-for-pain-series-antipsychotics\/\">Anti-Psychotics<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/6091\/medications-for-pain-opiates\/\">Opiates (Narcotics)<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/6114\/medications-for-pain-series-medication-advances\/\">Medication Advances Coming Soon<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/6116\/medications-for-pain-series-research-advances\/\">Research Advances<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Some general points about medication:<\/p>\n<p><strong>1. Medication is part of comprehensive treatment<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>When I work with patients with pain, I talk about the <em>many<\/em> aspects of pain treatment. These include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>treating the underlying medical problem<\/li>\n<li>decreasing pain sensations<\/li>\n<li>coping with remaining pain<\/li>\n<li>living life despite pain<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Medication can\u00a0treat the underlying medical problem,\u00a0decrease pain sensations, or both.<\/p>\n<p><strong>2. A <em>comprehensive<\/em> treatment plan may include:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>other medical treatments like injections, infusions, and spinal cord stimulators<\/li>\n<li>psychological treatment including relaxation, guided imagery, and visualization<\/li>\n<li>physical therapy, including treatments, TENS, and pacing of activities<\/li>\n<li>family support<\/li>\n<li>evaluation and treatment of psychiatric problems that pain may cause, for example, depression or anxiety<\/li>\n<li>work to increase functioning, in whatever ways are meaningful and possible<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Most often to get a good result, you have to focus on <em>all<\/em> parts of comprehensive treatment, not just hope medication does it all.<\/p>\n<p><strong>3. What is your goal?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>For many people, medication isn&#8217;t curative, nor does it reduce pain to zero. But that doesn&#8217;t mean it&#8217;s not helpful. The goal of pain treatment is to reduce pain as much as possible <em>AND<\/em> to function as fully as possible. Don&#8217;t lose sight of the second because of only focusing on getting rid of pain. And don&#8217;t wait for pain to get to zero before figuring out how to live life despite pain.<\/p>\n<p><strong>4. Medication treatment is an art as well as a science<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We know <em>some<\/em> things about medications, but there&#8217;s a lot we don&#8217;t know! For many of the medications we use, or use in combination with others, we don&#8217;t know enough about what types of pain they&#8217;re best for, what combinations work best for what types of pain, etc. <em>FDA approval<\/em> of a medication for a certain disease is the best level of assurance that a medication might work well for you. Unfortunately, many of the medications we use aren&#8217;t FDA approved\u00a0&#8211; we&#8217;re just not there yet in our research. That doesn&#8217;t mean they&#8217;re not good\u00a0&#8211;\u00a0we just don&#8217;t know for sure.<\/p>\n<p>The second best level is when there&#8217;s some research and a lot of clinical experience, but just not FDA approval. After that comes medication that a physician has some experience with, but a lot is still unknown. Obviously the farther you get away from FDA approval, the more you have to weigh the possible risks with benefits.<\/p>\n<p><em>Combination treatment &#8211; <\/em>using multiple medications at one time &#8211; also has varying degrees of research backing it up. Unfortunately again, it&#8217;s mostly on the &#8220;little research&#8221; end. But that&#8217;s beginning to change\u00a0&#8211; there are more and more\u00a0studies\u00a0looking at combination treatment. So we&#8217;re getting somewhere!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is a\u00a0series about medications for pain. For each medication class,\u00a0we&#8217;ll cover: what are your choices? how do various medications work? what are the pros and cons of different types of medication? how about side effects? I hope\u00a0this information will be helpful to you, both to better understand the current medications you&#8217;re on, as well [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5678"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7890,"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5678\/revisions\/7890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}