Suffering from chronic pain? For solutions, read on ...

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Up to 30 million Americans suffer from under-treated chronic pain. (1) Families suffer with them. For most, suffering is completely unnecessary.

Problem: Medical schools do not provide sufficient curriculum time to pain management nor do most residency programs.

Solution: Encourage medical schools to prioritize teaching pain management per "best practice" as recommended by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) (2) and also provide educational workshops for physicians already in practice.

Problem: Even when properly informed, doctors are often afraid to follow "best practice" guidelines for patients who require large amounts of medication or even to accept pain patients out of fear of being targeted by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

Solution: Seek another doctor if your prescription fails to relieve your pain. If you are unable to obtain adequate medication, complain to your senators and congressman and urge them to investigate the DEA's failure to respect "best practice" and persecution of conscientious physicians. (Conscientious physicians tend to attract extreme chronic pain sufferers, and hence prescribe greater quantities of opioids in general and huge doses to some patients as warranted. Thus they attract the scrutiny of overzealous DEA agents and prosecutors who either don't understand "best practice" or are seeking headlines to divert attention from their overall failure to prevent wide scale criminal diversion of licit and illicit drugs.)

Problem: Many patients suffer needlessly because they are...