Patient Education Wellness Quarterly 

Energy conservation is a hot topic
these days. As the weather heats up and air conditioning season starts, you may become more interested in learning new ways to reduce waste and cut costs. If your air conditioning system is older, you may consider replacing it with a newer, more energy efficient model. Identifying energy-wasting habits and replacing them with more economical alternatives can also help the bottom line.

Energy conservation is also a very important part of effective pain management. Chronic pain is a physical challenge that drains your energy and wears you out. Chronic pain also challenges you emotionally and can result in feeling more easily stressed, frustrated and overloaded. If asked, you could probably list the ways you are treating the physical aspect of your pain.

But what are you doing to treat the emotional energy lost due to your pain? You may be surprised to find out that the emotional drain caused by chronic pain can have just as much negative impact on your life as the physical drain. The following information will help you better estimate if you are wasting unnecessary emotional energy. Read the examples and see which ones apply to you.

Chronic Pain - The Elephant in the Room
Chronic pain may be invisible but it has a huge presence in the life of the chronic pain patient. There is no doubt chronic pain also affects the lives of everyone around the patient. Figuring out the best way to deal
with the presence of chronic pain can be tricky. Often patients and their loved ones deal with it by ignoring it —they treat it like the elephant in the room. Everyone knows it’s there but no one talks about it. Although this coping strategy may work in the short-term, it is not a long-term solution.

Part of the reason both the patient and his/her family and friends ignore the pain is because they don’t know
how to talk about it. After all, chronic pain is different. It is not as simple as a broken bone that will heal. It is complicated and unpredictable. Usually there is no “one cure” that will make the pain go away completely. When the patient experiences a flare-up or increase in pain, family and friends may feel helpless because there’s not much they can do to decrease the patient’s pain. Family and friends don’t know what to do or say to help a loved one who is dealing with an issue that compromises the patient’s quality of life on an ongoing basis. Patients get tired of answering the question, “How are you doing?” Both parties may feel resentment about the negative impact chronic pain has had upon their lives.

In the story “The Christmas Carol” the main character Ebenezer Scrooge (a stingy and selfish man) is visited by three ghosts representing three phases of his life; the past, the present and the future. As Ebenezer visits each phase of his life he is forced to confront his harmful behaviors and the negative consequences those behaviors have had on him and those around him.

Like Ebenezer, chronic pain patients are often “haunted” by the ghosts of their past, present and future. These ghosts often bring fear, worry and a sense of uncertainty with them. Unless you find a way to make peace with them they will continue to bother you and sabotage your quality of life. At their worst they can make you feel stuck and like you have nowhere to turn to make things better. Wouldn’t it be great to have an opportunity to start the New Year in a more positive way? The information that follows describes each ghost and how it tries to sabotage you. It also provides ways to deflect the harmful effects of each ghost and learn from it so you can move forward with your life.

The phrase “maintaining your balance” probably makes you think about keeping your body upright without falling over. Although physical balance can be an issue when dealing with certain medical conditions and taking medications, there is another type of balance that is equally important and often overlooked in the treatment of chronic pain. When dealing with chronic pain “the other balance” is your emotional balance.

Chronic pain is both a physical and emotional stressor. All patients who have a chronic pain condition also naturally experience chronic, painrelated emotional stress. Like physical pain, emotional distress is variable. It usually goes up and down with your pain level and makes you more emotionally sensitive to the influence of day-to-day stressors. Knowing how to effectively respond to and manage this emotional distress is a key part of developing successful pain management coping strategies. These coping strategies assist patients as they search to find ways to live with their chronic pain.

Wellness Quarterly It is a very common question this time of year. For chronic pain patients this question can be a difficult one to answer. Because of your pain condition you probably have limitations in your ability to participate in some of the more traditional activities of summer. Hearing about the plans your friends and family have may result in your thinking more about what you canʼt do than what you can do.

Chances are your plans will include time with loved ones who do not have a chronic pain condition. If taking a vacation is part of your plans, you may at some point feel obligated to not allow your chronic pain to take away from every one else having fun. This newsletter will focus on ways you can make your summer as enjoyable as possible.
Set and Maintain Realistic Expectations: During the year you probably get together with family and friends on your “good days” when your pain is tolerable, and limit or avoid socializing when you have higher pain days. As a result, they may overestimate your ability to participate in activities.

Pain News Fall 2009 A look back at our beginning from the medical director
It has been nearly seven years since The Pain Center of Arizona saw its first patient in October of 2002 in the office at Deer Valley. We were one doctor, a nurse, a few medical assistants and a handful of office staff working in a space that was way too large for our needs and volume of patients. We had a vision to provide a patient specific and comprehensive approach to the many patients suffering with chronic pain. We had a mission to offer them hope and compassion and relief from the pain so they could get back into life. We made a promise that together we would make a difference in the patients we saw and in the lives we touched. TPC saw only about 50 patients in the month of October 2002.

Fast forward seven eventful years and The Pain Center of Arizona looks a lot different. We are now a practice with eight physicians, a behavioral pain psychologist, three physician assistants, and two nurse practitioners.