It has been 8 years since the Ministry of Health issued a document requiring the establishment of pain departments (code 27) in hospitals above the second level in 2007, but many people are still unaware of the existence of pain departments, and many pain patients who have been suffering from pain and complications for years are unable to receive professional treatment from specialized departments! For this reason, this article is published in the hope that the public will have a more in-depth understanding of the pain department!
Nearly 70% of people do not know about pain medicine
Since pain medicine is an emerging discipline, many people in the medical staff do not know much about it, let alone patients. One patient said, “I’ve been having headaches for 20 years, and I’ve been to the neurology department countless times, but I can’t get it right, so I don’t have any confidence in seeing a doctor anymore. Who knew that after three visits to the pain department I would be cured.”
The low visibility of the pain department among patients is also one of the reasons for the low consultation rate. In the traditional concept, people only know internal, external, gynecological, pediatric, simply do not know that pain is also a medical discipline can be directly examined, treatment, prescription; in addition, due to their own economic situation, so that some patients only pay attention to “life-saving medicine”, that is, the cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases with high mortality need to go to the hospital Treatment.
In the past, many people did not know which department to go to when they were sick, which led to many painful diseases becoming difficult and complicated, and many people chose to “follow the advertisement”, resulting in a lot of money spent, but the disease is getting worse. Nowadays, as “pain” is gradually recognized and taken seriously by the medical community, most hospitals have set up special pain departments to specifically “deal with” various kinds of pain.
Experts remind patients: when pain symptoms appear, you should first choose to go to the pain department, do not arbitrarily take painkillers, which will not only damage liver and kidney function, hematopoietic function, but also cover up some life-threatening major diseases. A patient with neck, shoulder and back pain, who thought it was frozen shoulder, later got worse and went to the pain department to find out that the real cause was lung cancer, but had missed the best time for treatment.
Approaching Pain Medicine
Pain medicine is a medical unit that diagnoses and treats pain and painful diseases. For a long time, due to the lack of professional pain disease diagnosis and treatment departments, many patients suffering from pain diseases seek medical treatment without purpose, and often fail to obtain effective treatment or even relief after treatment by many departments, and such patients even lose confidence in seeking medical treatment and hospitals. The establishment of the pain department has put an end to the embarrassing situation of “small pain department, but big pain department does not care”, which is the gospel of the majority of patients with pain diseases.
How does pain happen?
In order to treat pain, we must first understand how pain occurs. We often suffer from pain due to collision, sprain and other types of trauma in our daily life and work, and pain can also occur after unconscious exposure to cold, humidity, overexertion and long-term inappropriate working position. Pain can be divided into acute pain and chronic pain from the course of the disease, headache, neck and shoulder pain, chest and abdominal pain, back and leg pain, etc. From the source of pain, it can be divided into soft tissue pain, joint pain, neuralgia, etc. Most of the pain from the above causes can be relieved or alleviated in the pain department. Since the causes of pain and pain itself are very complex, it takes a certain period of time for a specialist to distinguish the categories and make a relatively clear diagnosis, and then the right medicine can be prescribed.
What are the dangers of pain?
I can’t eat because of the pain… I can’t sleep because of the pain… I can’t get up because of the pain… I can’t walk because of the pain… I can’t do anything because of the pain! Such words seem to be often heard around us!
The harm and negative impact of pain on the human body is immeasurable, leading to dysfunction of the body’s cardiovascular system, digestive system, endocrine system and other dysfunctions, low immunity, which in turn induces various complications, often accompanied by disorders of plant nerve function. It can also cause varying degrees of mental fear, panic, depression, anxiety, sadness and other adverse emotions, and even cause painful disability or affect the life of the patient, which brings great pain and negative effects to the patient and other members of his family. It is evident that pain has become one of the major killers of human health and one of the most common and direct factors causing the loss of human working capacity.
Pain is an important signal of human illness. Long-term pain tolerance can conceal the development of the disease, delay the best time for treatment, and self-promote the deterioration of the disease. Pain is a disease in itself. If a small one is not treated, it is a big one, and if a big one is not treated, it will die! Tolerating pain will lead to deep-seated damage to body tissues and increase the rate of disability and mortality!
Who is suitable to visit the pain department?
The Department of Pain Medicine is a multidisciplinary interdisciplinary field involving many clinical specialties, so the scope of specialties is relatively wide, including: various acute and chronic pain, such as trigeminal neuralgia, migraine, frozen shoulder, cervical spondylosis, lumbar spondylosis, geriatric osteoarthrosis, herpes zoster and post-herpetic nerve pain, advanced cancer pain, long-term post-operative pain, phantom limb pain after amputation, etc. Any chronic, long-term pain that bothers people’s life and health can be treated at the pain department.
The common intractable pains are mainly the following.
1, trigeminal neuralgia, also known as “painful spasm”, is a recurrent transient and severe pain involving one or more distribution areas of the trigeminal nerve confined to the face. Although this disease is easy to diagnose, many patients cannot be cured for tens of years.
2.Post-herpetic neuralgia is persistent and severe pain even after the lesions (scars) of herpes zoster have been completely healed.
3.Post-operative lumbar pain, which refers to the patient’s frequent lumbar pain even after spinal surgery for various reasons, when the primary disease has been removed.
4.Stubborn headache, the symptom of persistent headache for years and years.
5.Phantom limb pain, the subjective feeling that the amputated limb still exists, and the illusion of severe pain. For example, the patient has one thigh amputated, but the patient feels it still exists but with toe discomfort or pain.
Is the pain a symptom or a disease?
Sitting for a long time, back pain; brain overuse, headache; eat cold things, may be toothache; after surgery, will feel a paroxysm of pain; some diseases, but also trigger the body pain …… “pain” is the earliest in life, is also the most felt subjective feeling The most common pains are those that many people are used to, and even do not take for granted.
Pain, divided into acute pain and chronic pain. Acute pain is caused by the primary disease, and with the cure of the primary disease, the pain also disappears. For example, if a wound hurts after surgery, the pain is relieved when the wound heals. Chronic pain often persists after the primary disease is cured, and the pain tends to increase progressively. The pathological and physiological changes of the body are completely different from the primary disease, such as some patients with herpes zoster, although the herpes has disappeared, but the pain is still prolonged for several years or even for life. The World Health Organization has clearly pointed out that acute pain is a symptom and chronic pain is a disease. In clinical practice, diseases with “pain” as the main symptom are called “painful diseases”.
What treatment methods are available in the pain department?
I. Minimally invasive treatment system
The common method is to treat the lesion by puncture and positioning under the guidance of C-arm X-ray machine or CT equipment. Minimally invasive treatment systems and equipment are available: ozone precision treatment system (medical ozone itself is a kind of analgesic without side effects), radiofrequency thermal coagulation treatment system, plasma surgery system, etc., all of which have been developed and successfully used in clinical practice.
Second, drug treatment
These include narcotic analgesics, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and combined analgesic programs that achieve adequate analgesia through the addition and synergy of different analgesics.
Nerve block and nerve destruction therapy
Pain is treated by blocking the nerve conduction pathway of pain, and there are pain point block, peripheral nerve block, intradural block, sympathetic nerve block and other methods. Corresponding to this is the nerve nutrition and repair method to treat specific pain, such as postherpetic neuralgia, etc. Director An Jianxiong of our center uses this innovative therapy to treat postherpetic neuralgia with exact effect and little damage to the nerves, which has been awarded CCTV-10 “Approaching Science” – “Mutation of It has been reported by CCTV-10 “Approaching Science” and Xinhua website.
IV. Patient-controlled analgesic PCA and psychotherapy
V. Physiotherapy
Including tui-na, massage and the use of artificial physical factors of electrotherapy, ionizing air therapy, microwave electrotherapy, etc.
Sixth, electrical stimulation therapy
Electrical stimulation of various levels of the nervous system can produce analgesic effect through the interaction mechanism of endogenous neuromodulation system. Commonly used methods include transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS therapy), transcutaneous acupoint electrical stimulation (SPP therapy), epidural interstitial electrical stimulation therapy, etc.