Brief History:

I can’t say enough good things about our healthcare system, medically and alternatively speaking, specifically, in regards to the overall management of chronic pain. I am completely qualified to render this opinion because I have been doctor who has treated chronic pain patients. And ironically, I sustained injuries that required I personally undergo four neck surgeries, spiraling my health downward into prolonged pain, which I have endured for the past 18 years. In fact, I still live with chronic pain today.

Questions:

How long do we remain dependent on medications that do not totally rid the body of pain?  And, what steps do we take to move into an independent lifestyle, such as adopting healthy lifestyle habits, exercising regularly, developing social connections and breaking dependency patterns, even if we happen to still live in unacceptable levels of pain?

Responses:

As complex as these questions are, I have had to personally deal with the reality of breaking certain medical dependencies, such as prescribed narcotic use, in order to move forward into better lifestyle choices, regardless of having to live with chronic pain.

What if traditional medical care and opioid usage loses its effectiveness to manage chronic pain over a period of time, perhaps 5 years or so? Which it will eventually, even if pharmaceutical medication is taken longer than 5 years, what then? What do you do? Continue to take prescription drugs over 10, 20 and 30 years or more?

To my knowledge, the medical science does not support the use of narcotic medication over long-term time frames, such as decades and more. Plus, the medical community does not have any evidence to show what the potential damage might be to the human body when subjected to long-term dosages of high-powered medications.

To break free from prescription dependency is very hard to do. Nonetheless, many chronic pain patients will come to this difficult crossroads, having to choose between being continually dependent on long-term medications for the rest of his or her lives or striving toward an independent lifestyle – one that is consciously healthier.

I chose the latter, clawing and crawling to live more independently and feeding my being the most nourishing approaches to health, though my body fiercely fought me.

The valley separating medical dependency and independency is long, deep and oftentimes, dark. Regardless of the modern, multi-disciplinary approaches to pain management, there comes a time when each person who might suffer with chronic pain has to look inwardly for different answers and motivations for living out his or her life.

Deep within the valley, some, if not all, medical priorities will fall out of view, especially when their efficacy rates are minimal toward recovery. Other lifestyle considerations, such as spiritual ones, will come to the forefront of reason.

It was primarily my spiritual faith that helped me to transform my life from dependency to independency, though the thorn of pain still remains with me.

Of course, first consult your physician before opting to make other lifestyle choices for your own life.  My experiences might not be tailored made for you, depending upon your own diagnosis and prognosis.

Nonetheless, the path to healing is holistic, which includes body, soul and spirit.  And when the body has responded optimally to medical care without having all its symptoms ameliorated, then other choices must be considered.

For more information about living with chronic pain and living beyond the pain or for more insights about the journey of transformation, please do not hesitate to peruse my website, www.gordonselley.com, or contact me via email, www.gordon@gordonselley.com.

Simply put, our society is besieged by chronic pain.  Look around.  Within your sphere of influence, which includes family and friends, don’t you know of someone who is living with chronic pain?

Before you answer this question, let’s define what constitutes chronic pain.  Chronic pain is a condition in which persistent pain lasts more than 3 to 6 months, ranging from physical to emotional to mental stimuli.

In the United States, pain has gotten way out of hand.  In a recent documentary, entitled “Deadly Dose,” by Dr. Sanjay Gupta, he illuminates his audience with some gut-wrenching statistics about how the American culture is trying to deal with the subject matter of pain, regardless of its etiology.

In essence, we’ve become a pill-popping culture, trying to find a quick fix for painful suffering in our lives, whether it’s something more common, such as a backache or something more life-threatening, such as terminal cancer.

Gupta reports, “As a starting point, 80% of the world’s pain pills are consumed right here in the United States, according to 2011 congressional testimony from the American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians.”  To elaborate, “In the United States, we now prescribe enough pain pills to give every man, woman and child one every four hours, around the clock, for three weeks.”

Many of these heavy-duty painkillers are classified as opioids.  In other words, we are turning into a society of narcotic users. This includes the intake of hydrocodone, oxycontin, morphine and methadone, to give a short list.  I personally know.  Narcotic use to manage pain was once part of my daily regimen.

Pain is so prevalent that it is now considered the “5^th Vital Sign” alongside body temperature, blood pressure, pulse and respiratory rates.  Once a patient declares a noticeable subjective rating of his or her perception of pain, then this becomes something significant for the medical community to deal with, in terms of treatment.

As a result, our reaction to try to microwave our pains away as fast as possible with prescription medications has led to additional consequences.

First, the effectiveness of pain pills eventually wears off.  Some studies indicate that has much as 70% effectiveness is lost with long-term medication use.  Additionally, to my knowledge, there are no studies to show the efficacy of long-term narcotic medication use over a period of decades of usage.  Imagine what kinds of changes the human body undergoes over 30 years of taking morphine and methadone?  Do you think deterioration or regeneration will occur with this kind of over dosage?

Second, our society is experiencing a spike in accidental deaths from prescription drug overdoses.  Gupta points out, “Accidental overdoses are now a leading cause of accidental deaths in the United States, surpassing that of car crashes.”  In practical terms regarding human fatalities, “A person dies every 19 minutes, on average from an accidental prescription overdose.”

The point of this particular blog post is not scare you from taking your medication as prescribed by your attending medical physician.

What this blog post does is to highlight that our society is becoming dependent on prescribed opioids, which in effect, is costing tons of billions of dollars, as well as creating an epidemic of narcotic addicts who are trying to moderate their pain issues.

The jury is still out regarding the efficacy of medication dependency as a treatment for chronic pain.  The real questions facing the professionals and the public are these:

1.) How long do we remain dependent on medications that do not totally rid the body of pain?

2.) And, what steps do we take to move into an independent lifestyle, such as adopting healthy lifestyle habits, exercising regularly, developing social connections and breaking dependency patterns, even if we happen to still live in unacceptable levels of pain?

This is what is unique about my life story.  I have been the doctor.  And I am the chronic pain patient who is living the transformed life.

Stay tuned for further blogs as I attempt to soundly answer the above-mentioned questions.

For more information about living with chronic pain and living beyond the pain or for more insights about the journey of transformation, please do not hesitate to peruse my website, www.gordonselley.com, or contact me via email, www.gordon@gordonselley.com.

It is well documented that the number of people who live in the United States are becoming part of the chronic pain population.  In fact, the most recent chronic pain statistics reveal 116 million Americans suffer from some form of chronic pain, and equally, our healthcare reimbursement system pays between $560 to $635 BILLION dollars annually to treat and manage this cumbersome and elusive disorder.

Oftentimes, those who live with chronic pain are commonly misunderstood and thus, live with the stigma attached with this debilitating condition.

HuffPost Live gathered a small panel of doctors and patients to discuss the idiosyncrasies of chronic pain, ranging from drug dependency on opioids to the unspoken realities of what it takes to live with this long-term condition.

Enough said.  Click and watch for yourself.  The conversation is just beginning in our society, as chronic pain is not simply a medical problem to solve through medical and alternative science.  The gap between interdisciplinary pain programs and non-drug options for the chronic pain sufferer requires insightful ways to begin living the transformed life.

For more information about living with chronic pain and living beyond the pain or for more insights about the journey of transformation, please do not hesitate to peruse my website, www.gordonselley.com, or contact me via email, www.gordon@gordonselley.com.

Click on to this Amazon link to purchase either your digital ebook or your paperback version.

“Gordon’s perspective is different; it’s removing the blinders on a broken individual. This is about surrendering to a hope that never gives up.  And he knows what brokenness is and as a result, Gordon courageously walks the narrow road in which he has literally gone from a bed-bound existence to totally reconstructing his life.

Gordon did not escape chronic pain, but he lives with hope because of it. He recognizes that suffering, and specifically pain, is what Christ permits in life in order to bring about refining, discipline, and intimacy.

I believe readers who live and struggle with various degrees of pain will find Gordon’s insight and teaching to be a real inspiration, especially those who live with a need to be told that there is purpose in their pain. I hope you will agree.”

Kamm Book Publicity