As Pennsylvania Workers’ Compensation attorneys, we see a wide variety of conditions faced by injured workers, from broken arms and legs to Complex Regional Pain Syndrome and Brachial Plexopathy, and everything in between. While the conditions plaguing these injured workers vary widely, there is one constant we see in case after case – chronic pain.
All too often, we see an injured worker become addicted to prescription pain medication. Nobody wants to live in pain, and often the first thing doctors try to relieve symptoms is a pill of one type or another. Many times, as the injured worker recovers from the work injury, and the pain relents, the need for the pain medication disappears. Unfortunately, when the work injury does not get better, and the pain becomes chronic, prescription pain medication may no longer be a viable alternative.
According to a recent article on Medical News Today, there are options aside from pain medication to relieve symptoms. Advances are being made in “neurostimulators,” small devices which are implanted to help block pain impulses from reaching the brain. There is hope that these, and other advances, may lessen the need for giving medications to injured workers in chronic pain.