Pain Management!!!

Iamdjharg

Hello Everyone, I am new to this forum and i wanted to ask if anyone can tell me ,do i have to ask my Dr to get me at pain management or do i ask the hospital?
I have Oa and several other ailes and the pain is getting too much.
I am only 52 nearly...Regards dj

hileena111

Hi again
It depends what you mean by pain management really
Arthritis Care still run some courses.......Challenging Pain is one of them....6 weeks, 1 day a week.
For that I would get in touch with your nearest Arthritis Care Branch.....on the front page of the website on the left hand side {or that's where it was LOL} it should give you areas and if you click on your nearest area it will tell you any Arthritis Care Branches Get in touch with them.
Or......Ask your GP to refer you to the Pain Clinic.
Due to lack of funding my consultant at the hospital said he would like me to go to the pain clinic but HE couldn't do it so he wrote to my GP asking her to refer me.
One of the things they did was send me to a chronic pain management group. They are all different.
I think your GP is your fist stop.
Oh just a thought.....any time you go to the hospital.....ask for a copy letter. They always write to your GP and its surprising the bits you have forgotten or missed or the things he asks the GP to do and they sometimes don't do it :shock: I'm copied into all letters from the hospital.
Just shout if you need to know anything else.
I'm sure someone else will be on to give you more or different advice....I'm in the North East
There is always the free helpline number for Arthritis care.....0808 800 4050
Love
Hileena

dreamdaisy

Hello, I was referred to a pain management clinic by my rheumatologist and found it useless because they didn't tell me anything I didn't already know. As you have OA your GP should be able to help or maybe the specialists that deal with your other ailments? I have two kinds of arthritis and pain is my constant companion: I could dull it to the extreme with the strong stuff but that only removes me from the pain, not the pain from me: I prefer to be alert and to use the pain as feedback so I know when to stop and rest. I 'manage' mine with cocodamol 30/500, they dull just enough to get on with things, with being a full-time wife that is necessary.

Pain is the ground elder of our lives, it cannot be eradicated so we have to adjust to living with it. I find distraction a very good technique, be it reading, watching telly, doing written and jigsaw puzzles and, come the small hours when I don't want to disturb the spouse, I create bizarre alphabet lists - last night's was a cracker, girls' names, two syllables, ending in 'a'.

Constant pain is tiring, it grinds away and can wear us down to a dreadful degree - those who don't have it will never understand what it's like. DD

stickywicket

hello again

If you put 'pain management' into the Arthritis Care search engine you'll find quite a lot of stuff comes up. Old threads are on the right of the page. You'll probably find the leaflets etc more use. They are on the left side.

Iamdjharg

[Thankyou Everyone, Very helpful

Tia1723

Every pain management clinic has their own methodology to handle patients, few might benefited whereas other may not. You might be able to get a doctor over there, which specializes in fighting chronic pain and can employ other methods in addition to your medication.
My rheumy refereed me to pain clinic and I am glad he did. I have RA and PM doc put me on opiates ( I feel those are safe until you are a responsible patient :P ) as I was not responding to short term ones. But I felt so good after years. There are certain medications that only specialist pain management doctor can prescribe. So I would talk to my GP about consulting with PM doc and get a referral. You don’t need to live in unbearable pain all the time .

Only disappointing thing is, they are busy and it can take some time to get an appointment. But worth waiting for at least in my experience. Pain free may not be possible but you can certainly make a huge difference with opiates as long as they don't cause more impairment then the RA itself.

Love,Tia.

Iamdjharg

Tia1723 wrote:

Every pain management clinic has their own methodology to handle patients, few might benefited whereas other may not. You might be able to get a doctor over there, which specializes in fighting chronic pain and can employ other methods in addition to your medication.
My rheumy refereed me to pain clinic and I am glad he did. I have RA and PM doc put me on opiates ( I feel those are safe until you are a responsible patient :P ) as I was not responding to short term ones. But I felt so good after years. There are certain medications that only specialist pain management doctor can prescribe. So I would talk to my GP about consulting with PM doc and get a referral. You don’t need to live in unbearable pain all the time .

Only disappointing thing is, they are busy and it can take some time to get an appointment. But worth waiting for at least in my experience. Pain free may not be possible but you can certainly make a huge difference with opiates as long as they don't cause more impairment then the RA itself.

Love,Tia.

Thanks! I will ring my Dr, Like you say' No one should live in pain