"Accepting is saying: 'Given that this is my situation, what can I do to minimize the disruption and what can I do to have a meaningful life?'"
(JENNIFER P. SCHNEIDER)
Q: Is it accurate to say that most chronic pain, by definition, is not really curable?
A: Basically, the only way most chronic pain is likely to be cured is if something surgical is done. For example, a knee is finally replaced, or else a spinal cord stimulator is successful. What prevents most chronic pain from getting cured is that the nervous system has undergone some permanent changes.
Q: By the time patients come to you, have they begun coping with the fact that their condition is chronic?
A: Most patients with chronic pain, when they first come to see me, are hoping that the specialist will find out what is wrong with them so they will get cured. They're hoping for yet another test, the latest evaluation. But they have to understand that chronic pain is different. It's qualitatively different. It's pain that has lost its usefulness and become automatic in the body.
The goal of chronic pain treatment is to minimize the pain and to maximize the function. The pain itself now becomes the medical problem. Chronic pain patients have to accept that their goal is no longer to find out what it is, but rather to find out how they can live with it.
