An accurate and thorough assessment of your chronic pain is critical to helping your doctor recommend the best possible treatments. What's involved in a good assessment, and what should you expect? The doctor should take a thorough history of all previous medical problems, and your immediate family medical history.
Your doctor should ask plenty of detailed questions about your pain, including:
*When it occurs;
*How severe it is;
*What makes it better;
*What things make it worse;
*Whether the pain is steady, or comes and goes;
*How the pain effects your day to day functioning; and
*When it first started.
What You Can Do to Help Your Doctor
1) Keep in mind that since there is no test for chronic pain, you are the most important source of information for your doctor. He or she is relying on your subjective report.
2) Ask as many questions as you need to. You have a right to expect that you and your doctor work as a partnership to come up with the optimal pain management program for you. This can't happen unless you have a thorough understanding of what your doctor is telling you.
3) Write you questions down before your appointment, so you don't forget to ask something important. Likewise, make notes of what your doctor tells you during the visit so you don't forget something you need to do.
4) Consider using a simple pain diary as a way of organizing and remembering information on your pain and when it occurred. Your doctor should have a form for doing this, if not, you can use a spiral notebook or journal. This can also provide a place for you to write your emotional responses to the pain experience.
5) A lot of us get overwhelmed while at a doctor's appointment; consider bringing a friend or family member with you to be another set of eyes and ears.
If you keep these five things in mind and do them consistently, your doctor visits can become more productive and less frustrating.
Barry Hughes, Ph.D.
Chronic Pain Alternatives
http://www.chronic-pain-alternatives.com
Resources and Information for People with Chronic Pain. Objective information on both alternative and traditional techniques for treating pain.
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