Preview above: How do you manage your chronic pain to improve your quality of life? Conquering Chronic Pain, Tuesday, April 14 at 8:30pm on SBS and On Demand.
More than 3.2 million Australians are living with chronic pain and that’s expected to rise to more than 5.2 million people by 2050. The disabling condition costs Australia an estimated $73 billion a year in treatment and lost productivity. But there is hope on the horizon.
“We are entering an extraordinary period right now,” University of Adelaide’s Medical School Professor Mark Hutchinson told Insight’s Jenny Brockie.
“There’s an array of new approaches that will, in about three to five years, start to take effect and we will start to see brand new approaches… being made available for pain management.”
Sister Mary-Lynne Cochrane has been a nun with the Sisters of the Good Samaritan for more than 40 years and she’s lived with debilitating arthritis and nerve pain since her early twenties.
“The pain is like dry ice, putting your finger on it and it burns and burns and burns, a cold pain, I call it. And nerve pain down my leg is like lightning bolts, pins and needles, numbness,” Sr Cochrane told Insight.
For more than 30 years, Sr Cochrane was caught in a cycle of scans, surgery and reliance on heavy medication. She’s had 22 operations.
“(My injuries and surgeries include) my Achilles tendon snapping off, being eaten off the bone; ankle and bone transplants on my foot; three knee replacements, three hip replacements; a bone graft on my pelvis; I've had both my wrists replaced with tendons from my arms and also a shoulder replacement.”
Source: Nadeem Ashraf
Sr Cochrane was first prescribed opioids in her thirties. She took them every day for nearly 30 years.
“I was taking opioids for longer and longer periods after surgery, to the stage where I was on slow release all the time. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was addicted to opioids,” she told Insight.
“I was a nun with a habit.”
Professor Hutchinson’s researching a diagnostic blood test which will enable GPs to measure a patient’s pain level and allow doctors to prescribe targeted treatments rather than generic scans and medications.
Exercise is key. I approach my pain by working with pacing, not like a bull at a gate. I accepted I had chronic pain that wasn’t going away… I’ve changed my belief system, the way I think about my pain and it’s worked for me.
He stressed that the best management for most people’s chronic pain remains the holistic “biopsychosocial” treatment approach.
“While opioids are fantastic for managing acute pain, they have little to no use for (most people’s) chronic pain,” he said.
Seven years ago, Sr Mary-Lynne Cochrane tried the biopsychosocial approach to managing her pain. She attended a pain clinic at a Sydney hospital, where she learnt to think about her pain differently and manage it with daily meditation, pilates and exercise. She has at least two physiotherapy sessions a week. Even now, during the coronavirus crisis, Sr Cochrane is able to keep seeing her physio, her nutritionist and her GP, either one-on-one or virtually via Zoom.
“For me now, managing my pain is not going to the box of oxycodone. I prefer that to be the last resort,” Sr Cochrane said.
“Exercise is key. I approach my pain by working with pacing, not like a bull at a gate. I accepted I had chronic pain that wasn’t going away… I’ve changed my belief system, the way I think about my pain and it’s worked for me.”