Chronic Pain Management and Addictive Disorders

According to researched published in Pain Physician Journal as recently as 2006, 90 percent of people in the US receiving treatment for pain management were prescribed opiate medication. Of that number 9 percent to 41 percent had opiate abuse/addiction problems. The research also stated that 16 percent of pain management patients experienced illicit drug use along with their prescribed medication, and as high as 34 percent in other research they reviewed. These numbers give a picture of the overall problem of chronic pain abuse/addiction problems in the general population. What is harder to quantify is the extent of this problem in the recovering community.

Whenever I asked the following question at trainings, “How many of you know someone in long-term recovery who has relapsed over pain management issues?” most of the audience raises their hands. The reasons vary, but more often than not they either take the wrong medication or too much. Others try to tough the pain out and end up relapsing back to their original drug of choice.

Living with chronic pain is difficult for anyone, but especially for someone with coexisting abuse, addiction or other psychological disorders. They can become severely depressed and discouraged. Healthcare providers often become confused and frustrated when their treatment interventions are ineffective and frequently blame their patients. The problem of managing pain and medication in recovery continues to grow and healthcare professionals are left with the challenge of how to effective address it. Given the biopsychosocial nature of addiction and chronic pain, it is imperative to understand both conditions and implement a multidisciplinary treatment plan.

To learn more about the need for teamwork for effective chronic pain management check out my article The Need for Multidisciplinary Chronic Pain Management that you can download for free on our Article page

You can learn more about the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System at our website www.addiction-free.com. If you are working with people undergoing chronic pain management and want to learn how to develop a plan for managing their chronic pain and coexisting psychological disorders; including depression, addiction and other coexisting psychological disorders effectively; please consider my book Managing Pain and Coexisting Disorders: Using the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System. To purchase this book please Click Here.

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