Pain Treatment Options (Other Than Opioids)

The opioid epidemic in the U.S. by the numbers:

• Every day, 130+ people die from opioid-related drug overdoses.
• More than 2 million people have an opioid-use disorder.
• 11.4 million people misused prescription opioids in 2016.

It’s time to consider other pain treatment options, particularly ones that don’t cause addictions or overdose deaths.

Holistic Medicine Group

In Minnesota, there is a Holistic Medicine Group made up of doctors and other health care practitioners who believe in an integrative, whole-person approach to medicine.

The Holistic Medicine Group meets several times a year to learn about specific health issues and how to help patients with those health concerns. In January, the group partnered with the MN Holistic Nurses Association for an event titled “Complexities of Pain: A Whole Systems Approach.”

Integrative Pain Treatment

Key points from the “Complexities of Pain: A Whole Systems Approach” event:

• 30-40% of Americans have chronic pain.
• To recommend effective pain management therapies, practitioners need to consider bio, psycho, social and spiritual aspects that can contribute to chronic pain.
• Functional Medicine – Tries to get to the root cause of why illness/pain occurs, addresses lifestyle factors, considers the whole person and his/her entire history from before birth through the present.
• Traditional Chinese Medicine – Includes herbs, diet, movement (tai chi), and acupuncture. It restores the spirit to the body (i.e., eliminates dissociation) and improves the body’s flow of energy (energy blockage leads to pain and illness). It offers a pathway to resolve the patterns that have been left unresolved, which lead to chronic health issues. It puts the body in a state of relaxation, which is a state to heal.
• Trauma – Most patients with chronic pain have trauma. It’s important to address any trauma as part of pain treatment. Trauma leads to a dysregulation of the nervous system, which leads to chronic pain. In addition, body tissue responds unconsciously to emotion.
• Frequency-Specific Microcurrent – FSM uses different frequencies for different health issues, and helps heal tissue. It increases energy production in cells by 500%, decreases inflammation, increases endorphins, stops bleeding, and resolves muscle pain.
• Medical Cannabis – One of the top prescribed medications in the U.S. in the 1800s. It can help chronic pain, and may be preferred over opioids because the overdose rate is 0, side effects are generally well tolerated, and the potential for addiction is only about 9%.
• Essential Oils – While essential oils don’t address the cause of pain, they can help with pain management by decreasing inflammation and spasms, encouraging sleep, providing a sensation of cooling or warmth, increasing local blood flow, acting as a counter-irritant, and interrupting pain pathways.
• Hypnosis/Suggestion – Practitioners can incorporate hypnosis/power of words to help patients manage pain; what patients are being told about the pain matters. The brain cannot tell the difference between what is real and what is vividly imagined (all world-class athletes use visualization). Your thoughts become reality. “I am _____” is powerful.
• There are many effective pain treatment options, depending on the cause of the pain:
  • Cranial sacral, myofascial release, postural restoration, occupational therapy, acupuncture
  • Therapeutic neuroscience education, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), mindfulness, hypnosis, biofeedback
  • Sleep hygiene, relaxation therapy, iCBT
  • Supplements, diet modification
  • Medical cannabis, cannabidiol (CBD)
  • Ketamine
  • Regenerative therapies
  • Electromagnetic field therapies

List of Speakers and Topics

Speakers, and their topics, at the event:

• A Functional Medicine Approach to Pain Management – Laura Sandquist, NP
• Addressing Trauma to Treat Chronic Pain – Erin Dykhuizen, MA, MSW, LICSW
• Essential Oils in the Treatment of Chronic Pain – Linda Halcon, RN, PhD
• What Works in Pain Management – Brian Erickson, MD
• Traditional Chinese Medicine Perspectives on Chronic Pain – Jennifer Blair, LAc
• Frequency-Specific Microcurrent for Chronic Pain – Lee Aberle, ND
• Hypnosis for Pain Management – Roberta Fernandez, Board Certified Hypnotist & Certified Instructor