Pain Management

UNDERSTANDING PAIN

Pain has many originations: French (peine), Latin (poena), and Ancient Greek (Poine) – to name a few. Poine was a Greek goddess of vengeance to punish mortals when they angered “the Gods.” Pain is defined as an unpleasant sensory response to a stimuli. In other words, pain is: stabbing, throbbing, hurting, shooting, debilitating, depressing, causes loss of control, sleepless nights and the inability to work. Pain robs people of the basic comforts of life.

It is important to understand the difference between acute and chronic pain. Acute pain is present for a short while (self-limited), which varies from patient to patient. On the other hand, chronic pain may continue for an indefinite period of time. Chronic pain may continue even with medication(s) and interventional regimen, but at a manageable level of pai

HOW DO YOU MEASURE PAIN?

Pain is measured in various ways, but the most common modalities
are described below.

• The identification of all the pains, most common ones
• The site, quality, time and radiation of pain
• Factors that aggravate and relieve the pain
• How does the pain effects patient’s functioning
• How does the pain effect’s patient’s mood
• The patients’ understanding of their pain
• Using numerical or face scale to measure pain which is ranged from 1-10 (1 = no pain, 5 = manageable pain, and 10 = most severe pain)
• After the applications of medication(s) and/or interventional regimen, measuring pain “before” and “after” in order to assess the effectiveness.