People who suffer from chronic pain and regularly visit pain doctors count on those visits for relief and release.  Many people do not realize, though, that they may be making mistakes that reduce the effectiveness of their treatments or make it harder for the doctor to do his or her job.  Here are a few tips for getting more out of all of your pain doctor visits.

First, it is important to be as accurate as possible when describing your pain.  If you see your doctor infrequently, it is smart to keep a record of your pain.  You can write down where the pain occurred, how it felt, how long it lasted, and what you were doing at the time.  When describing pain, you should describe severity — rating it on a scale is a good way to do this — and whether the pain was an ache, a sharp pain, or something else.  Read more »

Chronic pain can be severely debilitating. To make things worse, it may be nearly impossible for your primary care physician, and even the specialists, to figure out what is going on. You may find yourself visiting one physician after another, with few results. These physicians may treat you with a puzzled and apologetic demeanor, or they might subtly accuse you of exaggerating your pain or inventing it completely. Such are the cruel challenges of chronic pain. If this sounds like your experience, you should consider visiting a chronic pain management center where professionals are ready to take your concerns seriously and work with you closely until a solution is reached. Read more »