1. Communicate Honestly With Your Doctor
If you're suffering from chronic pain, you should become comfortable with your pain management team. The first step in successful pain management is being open with your physician, providing him with a detailed description of your pain levels and how they fluctuate with activity changes, weather changes or medications. If you don't share with your doctor because you don't want to complain or because you're scared to try new treatment options, you will hinder your care by tying his hands. Instead, be open and communicative.
Your role in the relationship is to update your physician on your decline or progress. To do this, keep a daily pain journal to share with him when you arrive for your appointment. Answer questions honestly, and expect honest feedback in return. Since chronic pain is often an "invisible" disability, your health team must rely upon reports of your pain in order to help you. If you don't think your pain doctor is taking your concerns seriously, consider seeking a second opinion.
Once you've been honest with your doctor, listen to the treatment options he presents. If you don't have time to discuss them at length, write down the options. When you sit down at home, make a list of questions about each treatment plan so you can address them at a later appointment before making a decision about how to proceed.
2. Conduct Your Own Research
Once you've spoken with your doctor about his recommendations, do some research on your own. Visit reputable health websites, check out books at the library or talk with friends in the health community to find out more about the side effects, recovery time and overall prognosis for available pain treatments. Most chronic conditions, like complex regional pain syndrome, have national or local organizations that patients can contact for updated information about cure research, treatment options and symptom management. For example, if you suffer from chronic pain due to fibromyalgia, you can contact the National Fibromyalgia Association or visit their website (fmaware.org) for a variety of disease resources that might help with your treatment search.
It may also be helpful to chat online with those who share your pain. There are many blogs, forums and newsgroups dedicated to chronic conditions, and the members often share experiences about new medications, experimental treatments and pain coping mechanisms.
3. Discuss Options With Loved Ones
It's sometimes easy to forget that you are not the only one impacted by your pain. When you're considering a new treatment option, new drug therapy or an alternative approach, seek the opinion of your family members and close friends. They may be able to point out concerns about side effects, treatment costs or other details that weren't on your radar. In some cases, your loved ones are also caregivers who'll be going through the treatment with you, so it's also important that they understand the options you have available, your post-treatment prognosis and what type of emotional and physical support you'll need during the treatments.
Chronic pain is overwhelming, and it can be difficult to submit to a battery of therapies that you're scared of or don't understand. Once you've discussed your options with your doctor, conducted some of your own research and talked over your plan with family and friends, you can begin to feel in control of your pain, your treatment options and your future.
