Chronic pain slavery is the sad consequence of persistent health issues that are capitalized upon by an often greedy and soulless healthcare system. Slavery is a rough word to use, but it is really the only term that describes the manner in which patients are forced into symptomatic treatment for pain, with little or no effort being put forth to cure the underlying cause of their symptoms. For most chronic pain sufferers, a life of ongoing symptom-based care is the best that can be expected.
As a student and sufferer of pain for my entire adult life, I fully understand the challenges faced by patients and doctors alike when it comes to dealing with the ravages of recurrent and treatment-defiant pain. Most patients will try several approaches to care, often including surgical interventions, but then eventually acquiesce to following a program of pain management when all else fails and the suffering does not end. Once this decision to “settle” on coping is made, patients have little hope of breaking the negative cycle of pain and doctors will have a nice easy ride for the rest of their relationship. After all, all the doctors will have to do is an occasional checkup and renewal of medications or other symptom-based care protocols. There is no more messy and time-consuming diagnostic evaluation needed, so it is a great time to cash those checks and spend more time on vacation or on the golf course. It is no surprise that doctors love chronic pain, as it guarantees them repeat customers who require very little actual “doctoring”.
Patients always have dreams of recovery, until they give up that hope. At this point, all optimism is lost and statistically, most patients will deteriorate to ever-greater degrees of suffering, in a series of plateaus in the treatment timeline. In essence, they will have static periods when things seem stable and the pain is manageable, but then they will take a turn for the worse and then level off to a deeper level of pain than before. This cycle will repeat over and over until complete disability occurs. While some patients avoid this pattern and others forestall it for many years, the hope for a cure eventually dwindles in most people, leading to catastrophic consequences in physical and psychoemotional health.
Once a slave to symptomatic treatment, the patient feels that they have no other option but to focus on battling the pain, since they have accepted that there is likely to be no cure for them available. This is especially true for patients who have already run the gamut of treatment options, including the most invasive and drastic therapies, without enjoying satisfying outcomes. But, the one variable that remains is what type of symptom-based slavery do these patients fall back on in order to live each day in the least amount of pain possible?
A few patients stick exclusively to safe and even constructive pain relieving measures, such as chiropractic, massage, TENS, meditation, exercise or acupuncture. These patients might indeed be slaves to the care practice they choose, but at least their “master” is kind and does not make their suffering worse. These people might not recuperate and may always have pain, but statistically fare much better than the overwhelming majority of patients who choose the path more often traveled. Most patients with chronic pain rely on the traditional medical approach to chronic pain; that being reliance on pharmacological products in pill or injection form. These are the patients who statistically suffer the worst effects of their pain, as well as their treatments, since the therapies used often have far more diabolical and wider-ranging health consciences than the condition they are being used to treat. Basically, not only are these patients made into pharmaceutical slaves, but their “masters” are cruel and hurt them progressively over time, increasing their level of torture year over year until disability or death occur.
I am making no judgments on the patients who come to rely on any form of treatment to combat pain. They are desperate, want to live as normally as possible and simply have few options. However, I am sitting in harsh judgment of the medical system that placed them is such precarious positions, especially when known cures for virtually all health issues are proven to exist and can be implemented. The main impediment to these patients finding cures is the greed embodied by the medical business of today and the simple neglect to utilize proven methods of care that fall outside of traditional medical protocols. It is long said that medical science will always remember doctors who actually invent cures for terrible afflictions. However, the reason for the memory is not to pay homage and show respect, but instead to scorn the individual for ruining a very lucrative trade in treating the now cured condition! I find this to be the very unfortunate truth.
So, how does pain coaching fit into this topic? Is it yet another symptomatic form of slavery? No, it certainly is not symptom-based care. In fact, it is not “healthcare” at all. Coaching is system of enrichment to the entire individual. It is the addition of life skills to the individual’s arsenal of weaponry that can be used to battle any and all obstacles. Coaching fosters independence in clients, making them capable of freeing themselves from their suffering autonomously.
My coaching programs are especially unique in that they can accomplish this formidable goal in a short timeline of only 4 months. Four months of coaching has proven themselves to be exponentially more useful for my clients than decades of symptomatic slavery or misguided surgical treatments that eventually led them right back into symptomatic care. I am so proud and delighted to have developed a system that can and does help so many people who would otherwise be left to languish in slavery to drugs for the rest of their natural lives.
If you are tired of dependence on drugs, injections or any type of symptom-based care, I can help. Contact me and we can discuss your future after coaching lays out a path towards success for you to follow. Take back the reins in your life and steer yourself out of harm’s way. The path you are on now only leads to protracted suffering, but a small nudge on your navigation each day will get you turned 180 degrees around in four months or less.
