Battle Pain And Addiction In The Washington Metro Area

Chronic illness is a persistent medical condition that people have to manage daily. Examples of chronic illnesses include diabetes, kidney disease, high blood pressure, cancer, or HIV/AIDS.

Sometimes living with chronic illness and pain can be very difficult. It seems like no one understands what you have to go through. Managing pain, fatigue, medical appointments, special diets, and medications can be overwhelming for both patients and families.

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Chronic Pain and Opiate Addiction

Certain medications used to treat chronic pain can lead to physical and psychological dependence. This means that withdrawal symptoms may develop when stopping use of the drug and tolerance may develop over time, causing the person to require higher doses of the drug to experience pain relief.

Pain killer addiction is another concern for individuals taking medication for chronic pain. Drug addiction is of particular concern when an individual has been prescribed a drug in the opioid family. In America, there is a growing number of patients with opiate dependence and all the untoward effects that go along with that.

People with a personal or family history of drug addiction or addictive personality disorder may be at greater risk for developing a painkiller addiction. You may have developed a prescription drug addiction if:

• You feel unable to control your medication use
• You have begun to take painkillers more frequently and in higher doses than prescribed
• You have begun taking painkillers to ease depression, anxiety, and other issues besides pain
• You are taking medication prescribed for another person
• You see more than one doctor so you can get larger amounts of medication than one doctor would be willing to prescribe

Fidelity Health’s chronic pain treatment program uses the fewest medications possible and when appropriate, prescribe non-addictive medications with the fewest side effects. We utilize a treatment protocol that reduces dependence on opiate medication with ultimately a taper off opiates for most patients. We target and treat the causes of pain and address any co-occurring addictive behaviors.