Just as emergency room nurses take a patient's temperature and measure their blood pressure, heart rate, and respiratory rate, they will now have to ask patients to describe their level of pain. Stephens says her primary care physician refused to prescribe heavy medications for her pain years ago. A pain specialist in Boulder was willing to treat her condition with opioid drugs. I wouldn't be OK if it weren't for this level of medication. I can think, enjoy life and laugh.
Studies show pain leads to depression and loss of mobility.
Healing is delayed when pain goes untreated, Wilensky says. The Mapleton Center's pain recovery center, a branch of Boulder Community Hospital, attempts to treat chronic pain with non-pharmacological methods such as biofeedback, physical therapy, occupational therapy, mental health care and exercise. But most patients need some form of chemical help too, pain specialists say. Around 40 percent of patients at the Mapleton Center pain clinic take heavier medications. Dr. Daniel Gerber, one of four pain specialists in Boulder County, says most of his patients come to him after primary care physicians refuse to address chronic pain.