CANCER CARERS SUPPORT
No one understands more than someone who has been there...
Chronic Pain Management for Cancer Patients
Chronic untreated pain is debilitating, it dramatically affects a patient’s ability to participate in daily routines and in some cases takes away their will to live. Tragically, many people are suffering chronic pain unnecessarily. This in part, due to them not being made aware of the importance of pain management and being shown the simple tools necessary to achieve it. Lack of knowledge regarding the benefits and side effects of available medication is also a factor.
Many patients associate morphine and methadone, with drug addiction and are reluctant to take it due to their belief that it will cause them to become “high” or sedated, this and their attempts to brave out the pain, results in their pain spirally out of control. This could be prevented if they were informed that chronic pain effectively “uses up” medication and that these drugs when taken for the relief of pain associated with cancer, can dramatically reduce both the occurrence and intensity of pain, without causing sedation.
All patients and their carers need to be made aware, of the importance of Pain Management and Symptom Control - and shown the simple tools by which to achieve it.
Accordingly patients and their carer’s must be encouraged to talk to their doctors about the progressive symptoms of their disease so these too can be managed and informed choices made-regarding available treatment and medications. Working with the doctors in this way gives the patient and their carer’s a measure of control over their lives and removes some of the helplessness felt upon diagnosis.
Knowledge is the key to better quality of life for cancer patients and for those who care for them.
