MY PERSONAL OPINION: Since pain management is NOT taught at most medical schools, perhaps this explains why doctors seem to have a lot of problems with prescribing the right kind and amount of pain medication for chronic pain. If this is true - and I suspect it is - chronic pain people really need to consider seeking the care of a doctor, who is a pain specialist. What do you think?
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1.) Conquering Pain: New discoveries and treatments offer hope......I have included a only a few excerpts from this article below.
http://www.businessweek.com/1999/99_09/b3618001.htm
" The 20th century has brought amazing breakthroughs in almost every area of medicine save the one that affects everyone -- pain.
"...science is still a long way from ''curing'' pain. Pain is one of the body's most complex biological functions, and it's hardly uniform. The pain response varies by gender, race, and age, making it hard to predict from one person to the next.
" PHYSICIANS HAVE ALWAYS CONSIDERED PAIN A BYPRODUCT OF INJURY OR DISEASE: TREAT THE UNDERLYING CONDITION, AND YOU STOP THE PAIN. CONSEQUENTLY, PAIN ITSELF IS UNDERTREATED, AND PAIN MANAGEMENT IS NOT TAUGHT AT MOST MEDICAL SCHOOLS. THIS LACK OF UNDERSTANDING HAS BEEN ALMOST MEDIEVAL: As recently as the early 1980s, for example, it was assumed that infants could not feel or remember pain, and surgeons routinely operated on babies without anesthesia. ''NOW WE KNOW THAT TRAUMATIC EVENTS IN INFANCY CAN HAVE LONG-TERM CONSEQUENCES, BUT THAT KNOWLEDGE HAS ONLY DEVELOPED IN THE LAST 20 TO 25 YEARS."
[ NOTE: NOW, PLEASE GO TO THE ABOVE WEBSITE AND READ THIS ENTIRE ARTICLE!! ]
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2.) There's More to Defeating Pain Than Designer Drugs
http://www.businessweek.com/1999/99_12/b3621053.htm
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3.) Where the Pain Plays Are
http://www.businessweek.com/1999/99_09/b3618005.htm
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4.) Pain's Pathway and the Drugs That Block It.....5.) Pain's Pathway and the Drugs That Block It: GRAPHIC.....TABLE: Defining Pain ... TABLE: Pain Snipes (.pdf)
http://www.businessweek.com/1999/99_09/b3618007.htm
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