Managing Your Pain

Pain is a complex process that consists of how you experience any discomfort. Our team will help you set realistic goals to reduce your pain to a manageable level.

We may provide multi-modal pain management, which involves more than one type of medication or other treatment. Or we may find one particular treatment that eases your pain as you recover.

Our main goal with pain management is to control the symptoms to reduce distress and promote healing.

Treatment

At UM BWMC, we offer the following pain relief as an alternative to or in addition to medication:

• Ice or heat
• Deep breathing relaxation
• Music, imagery or humor distraction
• Massage
• Meditation and quiet
• Pet therapy
• Spiritual and pastoral support

Levels of Pain

We will ask you to describe your pain as best as you can to us by choosing a number that is relates to how you feel:

• Mild pain: 1-3
• Moderate pain: 4-7 (pain that interferes with work or sleep)
• Severe pain: 8-10 (pain that interferes with all activities)

We also have the FACES Pain Rating Scale that is associated to the numbers.

Opioid Medications

Please be honest and notify your care team if there are addiction issues in your past or in your family. This information will help guide your treatment.

Although opioid medication are used for only a short duration of time, we want to make sure we do not provide opioids for anyone who is concerned about their use. We always have non-opioids options for pain management.

Resource

• National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health