Pain Management
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We all have pain at some time in our lives. Pain is your body’s way of telling you that something is wrong. Pain is generally categorised as acute or chronic pain. This website was developed to tell you about pain and the options that may be available to assist you, whilst you are trying to cope with your pain. Acute PainAcute pain follows physical injury, surgery or trauma. It is located around the injury/surgical site and depending on the nature of the injury/surgery may be present for 1 day to 3 weeks. There are many medications and treatments that are used to help control acute pain. These medications and treatments all work on different generators of pain. Your doctor will usually consider implementing more than one of the available medications and/or treatments so that pain is well controlled. The NCAHS has developed a number of patient information brochures/sheets that explain the specific medications and treatments used in acute pain. These documents are available on the NCAHS website. Chronic PainChronic or persisting pain is defined as pain that is present on most days for at least three months. Approximately 20 percent of the population has a chronic or persistent pain condition that interferes with their daily living. The causes of chronic pain are many, from nonspecific back complaints to arthritis to injuries to cancer. At present most of these conditions do not have effective or lasting cures1. Specialist Centres for the management of chronic or persistent pain have found that while people with persistent pain do not like being in pain they have found ways to get around it and to get on with their lives1. There are many resources available to help the person with chronic or persistent pain to manage the condition either on their own, with the support of a health carer or with the support of a team of health carers from several specialties (a multi-disciplinary team). Some of this information is available on this website. we also strongly recommend that you visit the NSW Health Chronic Pain website at:http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/publichealth/pharmaceutical/chronic_pain/index.asp Reference 1. Nicholas M., Molloy A., Tonkin L. & Beeston L. 2002. Manage Your Pain. ABC Books. Sydney. Australia
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