Living With Pain

It is an unfortunate part of aging that it is sometimes painful. Through no fault of our own, we may face hours of agony. Is there help? Your computer can be a valuable assistant in researching your condition and finding valuable resources that will help in taking an active role in your pain management. Those of us who experience frequent or constant pain are likely already under a doctor’s care. Some of us who experience increasing or sporadic discomfort may be starting to be concerned and are looking into the situation. Early dialogue with your primary health care physician is a start. This often leads to contact with specialists and tests of varying descriptions. The terms used to describe your condition, its symptoms, and its treatment can become bewildering. This is where you can participate in the medical process. An online search on the condition, symptoms and terminology will yield an array of information. In many cases there will be sites that will use plain English and explain everything in a straight forward fashion. This will help in understanding what you are dealing with. WebMD http://www.webmd.com/pain-management/guide/pain-management-diagnosing is a resource that will give you a brief understanding of the different diagnostic tests that can be used to identify the causes of pain. This site has a lot of resources that can help in understanding the different types and causes of severe pain. Often doctors will refer patients to specialized pain clinics. In Ontario there are many affiliated with top notch hospitals. Chedoke Hospital, Hamilton Health Sciences centre is one example http://www.hamiltonhealthsciences.ca/body.cfm?id=251. Sick Kids Hospital in Toronto is an example of a child oriented pain clinic http://www.sickkids.ca/Centres/pain-centre/index.html. In addition, many Toronto area hospitals have pain clinics that are state of the art. By taking an active role in the understanding and remediation of your pain, it is likely that contact with an association that specializes in your particular disorder may prove beneficial. Again, a Google search will identify the different associations such as Arthritis, Chronic Pain Association of Canada, Fibromyalgia, Back Pain, and the list goes on. One of the more common treatment options for pain management is the use of drugs. There are a myriad of drugs that are prescribed for pain control. This is one site that gives information on many of the drugs most often prescribed, http://www.healthcentral.com/chronic-pain/find-drug.html. If you are interested in drug related studies and articles, this link may be of interest http://scholar.google.ca/scholar?q=pain+management+drugs&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=sch olart&sa=X&ei=JxDzT4XUGuXl0QGNv6nFCQ&sqi=2&ved=0CGAQgQMwAA. There is a lot of interest in natural remedies. A Google search will find such remedies that can be used for pain management also. Check out this site http://www.everydayhealth.com/pain-management/herbal-remedies-for-pain.aspx. If you go this route, be sure to take the natural remedies with you to doctors’ visits. There may be drug interactions that you are not aware of. A pain treatment option that is in the news every so often is the use of Meditation. An article in Health Magazine, How Meditation Releases and Relieves Pain is a very interesting read http://www.health.com/health/condition-article/0,,20189590,00.html. Many times medication and meditation together bring relief. Going to the internet and searching pain remedies and cures will sometimes bring up sites that tout new remedies. They will most often come with case studies and stories of pain reduction and cures. It is best to check these claims carefully. Not everything you read on the internet is true. The snake oil salesmen are not gone, they just live somewhere on the web now. Support groups can often be quite helpful. This is a place were you can talk with people who are weathering the same storm as you. One group, The Chronic Pain Association of Canada, http://www.chronicpaincanada.com/support-groups.html, has a membership fee based group, but their website lists a number of local chapters that you can get in touch with. An online support community that has online discussions is found here http://www.dailystrength.org/c/Chronic-Pain/support-group. Check them out to see if this is the sort of group that fits your needs. There is an online chat and discussion group for people with fibromyalgia, called Fibrotalk. It is found here http://www.fibrotalk.com/. For those of you who are interested in what research is being done can go online to the National Institute of Health (USA) and follow the links to see what current research is underway http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/chronic_pain/chronic_pain.htm. The University of Toronto Centre for the Study of Pain is another resource http://www.utoronto.ca/pain/. Computer Ease is a regular feature of the RTO/ERO Renaissance. Share your ideas with the author at: mail4wayne@cogeco.ca If you would like to be part of our Google + circle, send an email request to me.