WHAT IS IT?

Definitions of pain vary widely, and post-surgical pain is no different. 2017 was the Global Year Against Pain After Surgery as declared by the IASP (International Association for the Study of Pain).

A working definition of chronic post-surgical pain (CPSP) is pain that:

• persists for at least 3 months after surgery,

• was not present before surgery and/or different characteristics or increased intensity from pre-operative pain,

• occurs in surgical site and/or referred area, and

• is not due to other causes, e.g. infection, disease recurrence, or surgical complication [2].

From humble beginnings in 2012 where Victoria Pain Specialists rented a consulting room in Epworth Hospital to more recently calling 27 Erin St in Richmond our home, we will be relocating to Level 4, 600 Victoria St Richmond from 20 February 2018. With the location change, we also wanted to take the opportunity to refresh our brand and change our name – to Pain Specialists Australia.  
 

The key is to combine pain reducing techniques with carefully selected and concomitant therapies like rehabilitation therapies and/or physical therapies and/or psychological therapies. And get this, these therapies need to be combined with effective pain education and patient empowerment.

OK, so you’ve got this relentless, persistent, pain that no one seems to know how to deal with and you might have even been told to live with it. And you say something along these lines:,“Is that it for me? This pain is draining and exhausting. This nerve pain is excruciating. In today’s modern times, surely there are options to manage my pain?”

The answer is yes, there are options for pain management.

When you’re in pain, being diagnosed with depression is common. People who are in chronic pain are four times more likely to experience depression in their lifetime than those who don’t have chronic pain.

Please raise your hand if you’ve experienced back pain?

In this article we will discuss pain that occurs in the lower part of the back in adults. In the medical field we usually call this ‘low back pain’ but for the purposes of this blog article we’ll call it ‘lower back pain’.

Please raise your hand if you’ve ever thought that it’s impossible to live a full life while suffering with chronic pain? The good news is that living a fulfilling life with chronic pain doesn’t have to be overwhelming. With the right team around you, and the right treatments and management tools at your disposal, you can get back on track and stay on track.

Everyone is familiar with pain after an injury but pain that persists and does not go away can be a much more difficult problem to manage. This is also known as chronic pain. Sufferers with chronic pain like this know that it can be frustrating, baffling and exhausting especially when they are told that the ‘scans are normal’ and ‘the pain is in your head’.

Chronic pain effects 1 in 5 Australians. We call it the ‘silent disease’ because it can’t be seen or measured. People don’t understand what it is, why it occurs and how it can be managed.

Everyone agrees that pain is a universal human experience.We now know that pain is 100% of the time produced by the brain. This includes all pain - no matter how it feels – sharp, dull, strong or mild and no matter how long you’ve had it.