Coping with physical pain
Do not fear pain. Pain is one of the most feared (sometimes even demonized) difficulties in the final period of mainly tumorous diseases, but presently it is also one of the best managed. Today no one has to suffer from cruel pain! If the management of pain is not working, this is usually not because of the disease but because of an insufficient level of care.
Become, as the patient and as their caregivers, active players in the game against pain. Even here you should keep your autonomy and maintain control – it is your full right. The basic rule of serious chronic pain treatment, for instance tumorous pain, is that it is necessary to prevent pain, and not let it develop and to sustain either a lasting pain-free state or allow just the amount of difficulties that do not disturb quality of life, normal activities and sleep. It is a mistake to seek relief only when strong pain develops. The main thing is not some hypothetical objective character of pain, but the subjective experience of the patient, his amount of inconvenience.
Become expert in the treatment of pain. You have a right to detailed information on possible treatment and to participation in its modulation. It is your sickness, your pain, and the threat of your suffering. The doctor is your expert consultant.
More information on pain and its treatment is available in the section On pain.
See also
- Communicate with people around you
- Learn to communicate with health workers
- Be active
- Coping with physical difficulties
- Coping with psychological difficulties
- Good departure
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