10 Jan So, what is Pain?
Well, there is a definition;
The International Association for the Study of Pain define it as; “an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage.”
Admittedly it is a bit of a mouthful! As a clinician I have resigned myself to understand that Pain is what the patients say it is.
Does there need to be evidence of tissue damage? I am not sure.
Are patients usually in distress? Inevitably they are.
Do patients expect a cure? Almost always.
Can I cure them? Hardly ever.
Will I try my absolute hardest to help them cope with it and make life more bearable? Absolutely.
I am new to blogging but will try my upmost to document my musings and thoughts on the current state of Pain Managment in the UK and specifically, in primary care.
The majority of Pain interactions are in Primary Care. I feel clinicians are ill-equipped to deal with patients who present with chronic / persistent pain (I will use the terms chronic and persistent interchangeably).
The term ‘chronic’ or ‘persistent’ suggests that the pain has been present for more than 3 months.
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