The National Pain Foundation’s mission, at its very core, will change the way people with pain are treated – physically and emotionally. It is about collecting then analyzing the details of your story to push the change.
For you the person living with pain, it’s about a better understanding of why your pain is occurring – what is the disease – how it works so that you can better understand your pain. We will build a digital community so that you can share in other people’s stories, understand medications, new technologies, connect to other’s (including healthcare professionals) who get that caring for a person living with pain is personal and will treat you as an individual. Your contribution (your story) will be analyzed with other’s who have similar problems – this will lead to a true understanding of pain as a disease … lead to a revolution in the understanding and treatment.
For the physicians, it’s about a better understanding of the disease of pain and emerging treatments … to date, there can be no ‘best practices’ when we have such a poor understanding of the actual disease!! We will change that. Treating acute pain aggressively to improve the quality of life and function of the person. Understanding that just because everything looks ‘OK’ doesn’t discount the pain as real. It’s a about a proper use of medications, when warranted, or when a drug-free option like an implant is best.