TTC – The Mayo Clinic Guide to Pain Relief
If your life or the life of someone you love has been hijacked by pain, you’re not alone. Pain affects more Americans than diabetes, heart disease, and cancer combined. In fact, one out of every three U.S. adults lives with chronic pain triggered by arthritis, chronic fatigue syndrome, disc problems, fibromyalgia, headaches, sciatica, or other causes. That’s why the experts at Mayo Clinic are working with The Great Courses to craft this research-based guide to coping with chronic pain, giving you access to the same knowledge that has made Mayo Clinic’s highly successful pain management programs so effective.
Almost all of us have experienced acute pain at some time in our lives from an accident, surgery, or dental work, for example. Your doctor most likely prescribed short-term medication, and when the cause of the pain healed, the pain itself and the need for medication were gone. You went back to your normal life.
But chronic pain is different. This is pain that persists for months or years after the initial pain source has healed, or is caused by long-term illness or disease. Or the cause might never be determined. This is pain that can transform a child, teen or adult from an outgoing, engaging individual to a person who wants nothing more than to lie alone in bed all day. This is pain that can rob you of your vitality, confidence, friendships, intimacy, and even your will to live.
But it does not have to be that way.
In The Mayo Clinic Guide to Pain Relief, Barbara K. Bruce, Ph.D., L.P., a clinical health psychologist in the Mayo Clinic Department of Psychiatry and Psychology and clinical director of Mayo Clinic’s Fibromyalgia Treatment Program and Chronic Abdominal Pain Program, provides a tried-and-true framework for coping with chronic pain caused by most sources. While acknowledging that everyone looks for a cure and wants their pain to come to an immediate and complete end, she points to a different approach: “I don’t want you to wait for a cure or pain relief before you move back into your life,” she says. “I want you to begin living your life today.”
In these 12 lectures, Mayo Clinic’s easy-to-understand scientific explanations and biology-based suggestions-supported by guest experts and helpful visual aids-can help you create a vibrant and fulfilling future for yourself, in spite of chronic pain.
Among a multitude of helpful solutions and approaches presented, Dr. Bruce specifically covers:
Creating a pain management program: Dr. Bruce shows you how to create your own individual program, utilizing the science behind what causes pain, as well as what behaviors can make it better or worse. She also explains the aspects of health that form the basis of a successful program, how to develop SMART goals, which non-traditional therapies may work for you, and the pros and cons of a structured program, always keeping in mind that these elements must be enacted with the help of a medical professional.
Why opioids don’t work for chronic pain: While medication can be highly successful for short-term pain and recovery from temporary injuries, opioid painkillers are ultimately not a healthy solution for long-term, non-cancer pain. Dr. Bruce looks at the research that demonstrates why this is and offers healthier long-term solutions.
The importance of other people: While we might consider pain a personal problem, Dr. Bruce looks at the social dimensions of pain, exploring how family and social support affects physical health, how mood both affects and is affected by pain and how this can impact your life, and how to build a health care team that combines professionals, caregivers, and other forms of social support.
