Typical Day in outpatient pain management?

[eliyazure]

Just wondering what the typical day would be like in an outpatient pain management clinic, what the patient's are like,. how much drug seeking behaviors do you encounter etc.

[toomuchbaloney]

In my view, most patients who are experiencing chronic pain and who are wanting relief exhibit "drug seeking behaviors".

[hausla01]

With around 8 months experience, I can say that the typical day in outpatient pain management seems to involve around 50% honest people with real pain issues who are not necessarily wanting narcotics nor actively drug seeking. It seems another 25% are solely there for high dose narcotics to abuse or sell and the other 25 % say things that maybe they are using to lean towards narcotic prescriptions, but maybe they are telling the truth ("PT doesn't work, made it worse, etc. I am afraid of needles, injections don't work, etc.) It is part of my job to be suspicious of everyone and to research and look for discrepancies . It is difficult to work with this patient population: Lots of psych issues, lots of unknowns; It's not fun to have to assume the worst from people, but that is how we can look out for patient (and our whole community 's) safety!

[BellaNoor]

I worked in a pain management clinic and boy oh boy will people be manipulative to get drugs. But as the previous poster stated, you have to be suspicious of everyone. But I really actually enjoyed working in a pain management clinic.