Pain management physicians

My doctor is referring me to a pain management group to see if they can help me. Have any of you gone to such a group and what type of "management" things do they do. I've been through about every type of physical therapy there is and those just end up in another steroid injection or another surgery. I'm just curious.

Nurse2

My pdoc suggested I go to a pain management group here in Canada where they teach, get this "coping mechanisms". I have a PH Li, degree in coping (Doctorate of Life), I was trained to teach adult Life Skills Coaches and taught Life Skills for twenty years. He seems to think if I just learned some new fangled method of refocusing myself on "the positive", and ignoring the negative, I'd be cured overnight, since it's all in my head, anyway. Humh.  

I am in the pain clinic program right now.  So far, I have done biofeedback, which somehow helps alleviate pain.  I can make the green, yellow and red lines go where they are supposed to go on the screen, but I have no idea how I am doing it, except deep relaxing breathing.  From biofeedback, I learned I should stop and lie down once or twice during the day and breathe for about 10 minutes to help get my body back to wherever it should be.  The psychologist calls me once a month to check on me and doesn't give me any chance to ask questions because he talks over me.  The medical doc gave me $800 of botox injections in trigger points in my neck because I also have myofascial pain there.  That helped awhile.  He prescribed mobic and zanaflex and when I ask for more meds he gives me a confusing answer.  The physical therapist who was not doing biofeedback gave me exercises to do.  Some help, some do not.  To her credit, I haven't been doing the exercises every day and haven't been walking as often as she wants me to, either.  I saw a podiatrist before the pain clinic and he told me what shoes to buy and the physical therapist contradicted him.  I told her I was skeptical of the shoes advice because everyone says something different and since I returned from Italy I had spent hundreds of dollars on shoes, to no avail.   I have shoes of all kinds - all expensive - all comfort line or atheletic kind (Birks, Born, Sofft, Clarks, Aerosoles, Ecco, Sketchers, Nike) and I still hurt, so no one knows the answer to my feet.  I start a fibromyalgia class next Wednesday for 8 weeks 3 hours every Wed. 

The PT at first said my pain was from underconditioning, which was just stupid, because before I started having trouble, I was in great condition.  She kept wanting to know: what causes pain, how long do you do it before it causes pain, how long does it last, what do you do to make it stop.  I finally got it through to her that every day is different.  One day walking 20 minutes causes pain, I can massage my feet and I feel better; another day, I can walk an hour; another day I am in pain from morning and nothing helps.  One day, shoes A work fine, another day shoes A kill my feet.  She finally said, it may be the fibro.  That can be variable.  Ya think!!!  Sheesh!

They do believe my pain is real.  That is a good thing.  I will let you know how the class goes.

Good luck!

Sue

Thanks for your input on pain management.  I'll tell  you that if one more person tells me I need to exercise I may scream. My husband goes to the gym faithfully every day but it doesn't work like that for me. I do any kind of workout and I'm in so much pain it's awful. Sometimes when the weather is warmer I can walk a little but even walking in a mall is painful. I've had both knees replaced and like some of you, my feet hurt all of the time. I only wear shoes if I have to go somewhere. I've had inserts made and can't wear them. I've tried several brands of shoes but have yet to find " the pair" that works. I was on a cruise and went to a reflexology seminar and I always rub my feet at night but now I concentrate on certain areas. I don't really see a difference but the people teaching the class live by this stuff. I went the herbal route for a while but I have and atrial arythmia and have been in atrial fib before so those are not a choice anymore. There is surely something out there to help us....I guess we just have to keep searching. Have a good day!

Nurse2