Federal Data issued in the Health-Care Section of February 7 The Wall Street Journal Newspaper informs us that, “More than 50 million adults in the U.S. are living with chronic pain at an estimated annual cost of $560 billion in medical care, lost productivity and disability programs.”
This number is estimated, however, to be much higher according to Mayo Clinic: “—at least 100 million U.S. adults experience chronic pain, a number that’s higher than the number of people with diabetes, heart disease, and cancer combined.” The newsletter continues, “The cumulative cost is huge in terms of lost time at work and increased medical expenses, to say nothing of the toll it takes on those with chronic pain and their loved ones.”
Mayo also stated that gender plays a role.
They stated, “Women are more likely to have chronic pain.”
But what exactly is chronic pain?
What parts of the human body does it most frequently inhabit? What are the leading causes of this particular type of pain?
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) answers: “Unlike acute pain – the sharp, instantaneous sensation that alerts the body to injury or trauma – chronic pain can persist long after normal healing, lasting for months or years.”
The WSJ adds that chronic pain can be found in any part of the body, while leading the affected individual into Finally, the WSJ revealed that lower back pain and migraine headaches are the most common complaints for chronic pain sufferers. In fact, about 80% of adults experience lower back pain at any given moment in time. In addition, 39 million U.S. citizens experience migraines, and more than 4 million of them have these painful headaches more than half of each day in a given month.
The treatment of chronic pain has made headlines recently with the discussion of the evil side effects of the opioid medicines frequently used as a common type of pain-fighting med. Between 1999 and 2014, Mayo Clinic’s newsletter advises us that more than 165,000 Americans died from overdoses related to this highly addictive class of drugs. The Centers for Disease Control, as a result of these horrifying numbers, issued new guidelines for doctors in 2016. Today, physicians are being asked to try a variety of non-medication approaches to help manage the treatment of chronic pain.
Mayo explains that “It’s important to be aware of the newer guidelines and the reason they were updated.”
More on this subject will follow in subsequent articles on this topic. Besides your preferred local pain doctor, pain rehabilitation centers have sprung up across the country. Pain doctors and other medical personnel are finding ways to help individuals live a fulfilling life despite their pain levels.
