Medical Management
Self-Management
Which approach is better?
The answer is both are important. Even though our program emphasizes self-management, we never accept anyone into the program who has not already undergone medical management, i.e., been evaluated and treated by a medical doctor. The key question is, when is it appropriate to rely on medical management and when is it more appropriate to use self-management? Most of you don't visit a doctor (medical management) every time you experience some ache or pain, or even when your chronic pain flares up. You take care of the problem on our own (self-management). However, there may be times when it would be a serious mistake to avoid seeking medical management. Medical management is certainly required for many episodes of acute pain (e.g., abdominal pain resulting from acute appendicitis). Likewise, there are many useful medications available for chronic pain sufferers. Making wise choices about when to seek medical management and when to self-manage pain is an important issue. When pain becomes chronic and all reasonable medical and surgical approaches aimed at cure have been tried, self-management becomes more important. Nevertheless, it should be kept in mind that not all self-management is necessarily healthy or constructive. Coping with pain by consuming large amounts of alcohol is a form of self-management (i.e., you can do it on your own without going to a doctor), but it is not a very healthy or constructive approach. Obviously, our program emphasizes healthy and constructive self-management approaches.