Part of our mission at ProActive is to empower people to take charge of their own healthcare, especially people concerned with treating chronic pain. That means every now and then, some of out team members end up doing interviews and show appearances with the hope of providing useful information that peopel can use to make better informed healthcare decisions.

In this interview, Rafael E. Salazar II, MHS, OTR/L (Rafi) sits down with Dr. Deb from Let’s Talk Wellness Now to discuss chronic pain. You can watch it on our YouTube channel here.

He also talks a bit about some key concepts from his book, Better Outcomes: A Guide to Humanizing Healthcare.

Key Points About Treating Chronic Pain

Here are some of the highlights from the video interview:

• How Rafi worked with a team at the Department of Veterans Affairs in developing an integrated or multidisciplinary approach to pain management.
• The Biopsychosocial Approach to pain management.
• Pain is a sensory and emotional experience that is a creation of your brain based on the real or perceived tissue threat.
• Sometimes our brain and our sensory system get those calls wrong, getting a series of misinterpretations over time.
• Pain is always real!
• The greater issue is, patients are losing hope because they’re not being given hope by the medical system.
• For the longest time, healthcare and third-party payers have kind of viewed healthcare service delivery as almost industrialized.
• If you’re still experiencing pain, find somebody who is talking about Neuroscience and Pain Perception.
• Other kinds of practitioners that can help you with pain management.
• One of the great benefits of Telehealth is that it removes this potential danger of becoming clinician dependent.

Summary

Treating chronic pain requires more than just cookie-cutter treatment plans. What works for one person may not work for another. It also requires developing a real relationship with the clinician. Chronic pain affects nearly every area of a person’s life. That means that you need to feel comfortable and trusting of the clinician you work with to address that pain. I always encourage patients to have candid conversations with the clinicians helping them with their chronic pain. Ask the tough questions. Push back on treatment ideas or recommendations if you know that they don’t fit into your life or if you see potential challenges in implementing them. It may feel uncomfortable at first, but you need to remember this: you’re the expert on your life and your body. Unless you let your clinician know about your concerns or challenges, they’ll still do the best they can, but they’ll be missing key information to help you overcome your pain.

And, if you want to get guidance on your specific situation and pain, and live in the Augusta Area, book an appointment with us here.