Pain effects MORE Americans than diabetes, heart disease and cancer combined!
Pain – 76.2 million people, National Centers for Health Statistics Diabetes – 20.8 million people, American Diabetes Association Coronary Heart Disease and Stroke – 18.7 million people, American Heart Association Cancer – 1.4 million people, American Cancer Society
Our present way of treating CHRONIC PAIN is not working.
Pain of any type is the most frequent reason for physician consultation
in the United States, prompting half of all Americans to seek medical
care annually.
Most doctors and patients do not understand chronic pain.
In 80% of cases the cause of pain cannot be established Quebec Task Force on Spinal Disorders: Spine 1987; 12:S1-S59
85% of pain patients lack a specific diagnosis. Deyo et al: JAMA 1992;268:760-765
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein
- According to a European Journal of Pain report, chronic pain affects over 19 percent of the European population.
- Back pain disables as many as 4 million persons in the United States per year.
- An estimated 20% of American adults (42 million people) report that pain or physical discomfort disrupts their sleep one night a week or more.
- An estimated 46 million adults have been told by a doctor that they have some form of arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, gout, lupus, or fibromyalgia.
- More than 26 million Americans between the ages of 20-64 experience frequent back pain.
- The annual cost of chronic pain in the United States, including healthcare expenses, lost income, and lost productivity, is estimated to be $100 billion.
- Back pain is responsible for an average of 12% of all sick leave, rivaling the common cold as a leading cause of absenteeism from work.
- Back pain results in the loss of more than 93 million work days each year, resulting in decreased productivity and increased expenses.
- Direct and indirect losses from chronic pain in the United States costs billions of dollars each year.
- Back pain is the leading cause of disability in Americans under 45 years old.
Chronic pain is major public health problem, and is now of epidemic proportions.
Medicare, social security, disability programs, workers’ compensation programs, and the private healthcare system all struggle to keep up with the never ending cost of chronic pain patients. Resulting in higher insurance premiums, loss of worker productivity, increased burdens on state and federal governments and a decrease in quality of life.
Now that you know that you are not alone in your suffering with pain. I want you to understand why the past treatments, diagnostic test, medications and doctors visits have been relatively ineffective. It is because they all were based on the false idea that there always has to be a structural problem to cause the pain and that if there is no structural problem there should be no pain. This premise is okay if you hit your thumb with the hammer and it hurts. Pain is much more complicated than previously thought.
