Medication Management

What is medication management?

Drugs are vital for treating many medical conditions, from severe bacterial infections to heart disease. They’re also invaluable for patients suffering from acute or long-term (chronic) pain.

The team at Addison Pain + Regenerative Medicine uses medication management to monitor the drugs their patients take and the effects of those drugs.

Why is medication management so important?

Medication management is critical to pain treatment for several reasons:

Benefits

Ensuring that the pain-relief drugs you take have significant benefits is vital. These benefits can be pain reduction, tissue healing, or both.

Side effects

Pain medication sometimes causes side effects. These are unpleasant or distressing symptoms like headaches, dizziness, and nausea. Many side effects are tolerable, especially when weighed against the drugs’ benefits. Others are hard to live with, and some are harmful.

Interactions

Some medicines interact when taken together. The effects of one or both drugs can increase or decrease, or the combination could be toxic.

Medication management at Addison Pain + Regenerative Medicine ensures that your medicines are effective, safe, and work as they should.

Which medications treat pain?

The various pain management drugs differ in strength and effect. The medicines prescribed vary depending on each patient’s diagnosis and the pain’s severity. Common pain medicines used by the team at Addison Pain + Regenerative Medicine include:

Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs)

NSAIDs like ibuprofen and aspirin can be bought over the counter, but several others are available only by prescription.

Muscle relaxants

Muscle relaxant medicines like baclofen calm spasming tissues.

Antidepressants

You might benefit from tricyclic antidepressants like amitriptyline for neuropathy (nerve pain). Serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor (SNRI) antidepressants are also effective in providing chronic pain relief.

Antiseizure medication

Antiseizure drugs that help with pain include gabapentin for peripheral neuropathy and pregabalin for fibromyalgia.

How are opioid drugs used in pain medication management?

Opioids are medicines based on the potent natural painkiller morphine. Common opioids include codeine, oxycontin, oxycodone, hydromorphone, and fentanyl.

Opioids are highly effective in reducing moderate to severe acute pain. Opioids are less useful for chronic pain because their effects lessen with time when taken long-term. Your body becomes used to the drug, requiring higher and more frequent doses to get the same effect.

Opioid use is controversial because the drugs are addictive and can cause other severe side effects. Doctors only prescribe opioids when no effective alternative is available. They carefully manage your medication so that you don’t become addicted or experience other harmful side effects.

Call Addison Pain + Regenerative Medicine today or book an appointment online to learn about medication management’s many benefits.