September is Pain Awareness Month–See what this advocate is doing–Part I

PART I

Celeste on pain: The Goal, the Patient, and Considerations of a National Movement Regarding Pain

 by Celeste Cooper 

(here from "For Pain in Pain.")

 

Whether you seek traditional, alternative or integrative pain management, your provider should always focus on one thing, improved patient outcome. This should be a shared goal in medical management, and it should include a patient centered plan with emphasis on patient and physician education, awareness, and ethical preservation of the patient’s right to choose. These goals are a moral obligation.  We know from history, it is a primal instinct to preserve life and avoid pain, and this instinct goes far beyond rational thought.

Inadequately treated pain of any kind has two potential consequences: an epidemic of suicide, or an upsurge in underground activity.  (see "Walk a Mile in my Shoes").  Removing medications proven safe when used appropriately, and not reimbursing for helpful therapies validated by research, throws the patient into a vast abyss. (see  Fighting for the right of choice. RE: PROPS)

As an activist, registered nurse and patient, I have concerns. Rising healthcare costs affect us individually and as a society. We are not in a position to waste healthcare dollars, whether they be for treatment, research, or costly prescriptions.  We are forced to work within a system devoid of a plan for addressing the physical, physiological and social aspects associated with chronic pain. This same system has set out to deprive us of low cost, yet effective, medications and denies reimbursement of integrated therapies proven to help. Is it any wonder we feel as though our hands and feet have been shackled and we have been thrown out to sea as shark food? What kind of society criminalizes all patients and physicians because of the unethical and/or abusive behavior of a few? 

Hear what Dr Oz and his guests have to say about the over-prescribing and misprescribing of antidepressants, including their use for treating pain. - And they don't come cheap. - It has become a multimillion dollar business and I can assure you, patient outcome is not the goal. This has been my band wagon, and I am happy to see Dr. Oz and other concerned physicians climb aboard. See my blog, Who Should Be Prescribing Our Pills? here 

For direct links to the four part series on this issue by Dr Oz, please visit here and scroll to the bottom of the page.

We want to be seen as people, not defined by our condition.  We want our rights, for which we will take full accountability. We want all the tools necessary to achieve our best life despite living every day in pain. Don’t blame us; blame the system; it’s time for change.

See:

Relieving Pain in America a Blueprint for Transforming Prevention, Care, Education and Research, here.

Oral Presentation to the H.E.L.P. Committee on February 14, 2012
Philip A. Pizzo, MD

Stay tuned, more to come.