Chronic pain expert Cindy Perlin, in her new book The Truth About Chronic Pain Treatments: The Best and Worst Strategies for Becoming Pain Free, suggests that costly chronic pain treatment has been misdirected and may have made the problem worse.

“Opioids are neither safe nor effective for chronic pain,” she says, according to a media release from the author. “Pain is not caused by an opioid deficiency. The real undertreatment of pain comes from covering up the symptom rather than addressing the root cause.”

Chronic emotional tension, poor nutrition, vitamin deficiencies, toxic exposures and allergens, soft tissue injuries, muscle imbalances and nerve impingement caused by spinal subluxation (dislocation), are common root causes of pain that are routinely ignored in the care of most pain patients, she notes in the release.

Instead, she concludes, pain patients would be better served by improved access to safer and less costly interventions such as physical therapy.

[Source(s): Cindy Perlin, PR Newswire]