Pain Management Expert Dr. Michael Port Maintains that Chronic Pain Can Be Treated without Opioids

On an almost-daily basis, new headlines, documentaries and studies illuminate the dangers of the growing opioid addiction sweeping the nation. Yet, chronic pain sufferers continue to receive mixed messages, as opioid manufacturers put out the message that chronic pain can be treated easily and safely by opioids, despite such compelling evidence that long-term opioid use can lead to physical dependency.

According to Dr. Michael Port, a double-board certified pain management specialist at DISC Sports & Spine Center, it’s vital that patients have a full understanding of the definition of chronic pain and all treatment options available to them, especially those with the ability to successfully relieve their symptoms without opioids.

As Dr. Port explains, chronic pain is not neatly defined, but can be most simply understood by the presence of two components. To be diagnosed as chronic, a patient’s pain must typically last longer than three to six months or be non-physiologic, non-functional in nature. In the human body, pain serves a purpose, usually to let the body know something is wrong. For instance, if you break your arm, your body sends signals to the brain alerting it that damage has been done. Non-physiologic, non-functional pain is any pain that doesn’t serve a purpose or has outlasted the duration of the injury. In this scenario, the arm has healed, but the pain persists.

“Opioids are effective, amazing medications when used for very specific purposes, such as short-term, acute, nociceptive, physiologic types of pain,” clarifies Dr. Port. “This means you broke your arm, you had surgery. You take it for a week, and when the pain goes away, you stop the narcotics. All is good.

“On the flipside, opioids are NOT great for chronic pain because your body becomes accustomed and accommodates to the drugs very quickly. What was great on Week 1 becomes not so effective on Week 2 or Week 3 and actually starts to have a lot of bad side effects. So, when do you use narcotics for chronic pain? Hopefully sparingly, intermittently or not at all.”

For Dr. Port, the first and most important step when treating someone suffering from chronic pain is to make the correct diagnosis, which also means checking for previously undiagnosed or misdiagnosed conditions. This includes ruling out any underlying conditions that may be treatable, such as infections, cancer or a degenerative arthritic issue. Defining the source of the chronic pain is a critical step in treating it, because this work may lead to an array of treatment options including rehabilitation, surgery, interventional therapy, psychological therapy, other pharmacologic options or complimentary medicine, such as acupuncture and soft tissue/chiropractic treatment.

When a patient suffers from chronic pain and the source of the pain cannot be identified, Dr. Port emphasizes that there are several classes of medicine that aren’t opioids or habit forming drugs. Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, steroids or epidurals can all be used to manage pain long term without exposing the patient to the risk of dependency.