In the next dates, pain management is a very large business. There are over 100 million people in America suffering every year from chronic pain, and the cost of this exceeds $500 billion annually. Multiple misperceptions exist in the field of pain management, and here are a few of them described.

1. Narcotics are always a terrible medication. Annually over 15,000 fatalities occur from narcotic overdoses and there’s a lot of bad press every week regarding pill mill practices. So is only natural that a significant amount of America looks at narcotics as being always a terrible thing to prescribe.

However, they definitely have their place in the management of pain. In the patient with cancer for instance, they can make the end-of-life much more tolerable than living last few months in horrific pain.

In patients who do not have a surgical option for their chronic pain, narcotics other types of pain management along with can allow patients to work, and enjoy functional lives play with their children.

So opiates do actually have a place in the treatment of those dealing with acute pain and some forms of chronic pain as well.

2. An MRI will always give you a diagnosis for back pain. It is interesting to note that even with the best medical minds, in this day and age only 50% of patients can receive a true definitive diagnosis for why they are having back pain.

This include patients who have had a complete musculoskeletal workup which includes a history, physical examination, x-rays, and even an MRI. So an MRI is not always the go to trustworthy part of the workup.

3. Surgery fixes most back pain. Often times there is truly no cure for a person’s back pain. Spinal fusion surgery in the United States has increased 15 fold over the last 10 years and the population has not increased by that much. So more and more surgery is being performed, and the results from back surgery for a lot of procedures are very suspect.

4. Only 3 steroid injections are permitted per year. Pain management specialist are not in agreement with, injections are definitively allowed annually. This is because research has not shown what is the best number. So some individuals say 4 injections per year and others say a lot more than that is okay.

With the steroid being injected into one particular area, medicine is able to stay in that region and only a tiny bit of it actually seeps into the bloodstream. So truly more than 3 steroid injections can be administered annually but we actually don’t know the definitive number that is okay.

5. All pain management involves opiate prescriptions. This is definitely a myth. The most modern types of pain management involve a comprehensive approach. This includes multiple pain doctors from different specialties collaborating and may include physical therapy, interventional pain management, or chiropractic treatment. Injections may include trigger points, epidural injections, or facet injections. This comprehensive treatment approach allows patients a lot of pain relief and tries to minimize the narcotics necessary.

Want to find out more about Arizona Pain Clinic, then visit Preferred Pain Center’s site on how to choose the best Mesa Chiropractor for your needs.