PAIN MANAGEMENT

What is Pain?
Pain is an uncomfortable feeling that tells you something may be wrong in your body. Pain is your body’s way of sending a warning to your brain. Your spinal cord and nerves provide the pathway for messages to travel to and from your brain and the other parts of your body.

Receptor nerve cells in and beneath your skin sense heat, cold, light touch, pressure, and pain. You have thousands of these receptor cells. When there is an injury to your body, these tiny cells send messages along nerves into your spinal cord and then up to your brain. Pain medicine blocks these messages or reduces their effect on your brain.

Sometimes pain may be just a nuisance, like a mild headache. At other times, such as after an operation, pain that doesn’t go away, even after you take pain medicine, may be a signal that there is a problem. Your nurses will be asking you if you have:

• Pain control methods that have worked well or not so well for you before.
• Any concerns you may have about pain medicines.
• Any allergies to medicines you may have.
• Side effects that may occur with treatment.
• Medicines you take for other health problems.
• “Measuring” your pain – You may be asked to rate your pain on a scale of 0 to 10 with 0 being no pain and 10 being the worst pain you have ever experienced.
• You may also set a comfort goal (such as having no pain that’s worse than 4 on the scale).
• Reporting your pain as a number helps the doctors and nurses know how well your treatment is working and whether to make any change.
• Pain control can help you enjoy greater comfort while you heal.

Your Pain Management Rights
All patients have the following rights:

• The right to pain relief.
• The right to be informed/educated about pain management options.
• The right to a timely response to reports of pain.
• The right to an initial evaluation of their pain, and regular assessments related to presence, quality, and intensity of their pain.
• The right for their self-report of pain to be utilized as the primary indicator.
• The right to work with their team of healthcare providers to establish a goal for pain relief and develop and implement a plan to achieve that goal.
• The right to have their plan of care reviewed and modified if their pain is unrelieved.

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