How to Assess and Address Joint Pain

Anyone who has experienced pain, ranging from mild to overwhelming, will agree that it is subjective.

Pain is physically uncomfortable, and it affects your mental health. For decades, it was treated primarily with medication, and often with opioids. That has changed. Today pain is managed with a wider set of tools like reducing inflammation, meditation, distraction, with a closer look at what the pain is actually costing a person.

Below Dr. Michael Meinhold, of Premier Joint & Orthopedic Care in Lake Charles gives his perspective.

Pain & Subjectivity

I almost never start with a number. A seven for one person is a three for the next. What I ask instead is: better, worse or about the same? Front, side, or back? Sharp and stabbing, dull and achy, or burning? Different pain may have different sources.

Then I ask about life. Still getting the mail? Grocery shopping? Getting down on the floor with your grandkids? When somebody tells me the pain is manageable, but they’ve quietly given up their evening walk, that tells me more than any score.

Joint replacement 

While more common now, common shouldn’t mean casual. Arthritis gets worse over time, but it doesn’t follow that surgery is coming. How much is it running your day? When you plan around it, stop doing things you want to do or when stairs have become a safety question, that’s when we talk—and I don’t start that conversation for you. Doing nothing stays on the table, and the timing is yours.

I try to be honest about surgery: You’re trading arthritic pain for surgical pain, which gets better, unlike arthritic pain. A knee is a harder recovery than a hip, and I say so up front.

The flip side is waiting forever isn’t free. This isn’t about holding out as long as humanly possible. It’s about going at the right time.

Emotions & Pain

Nobody comes into my office mourning their cartilage. They mourn gardening. Tennis. The evening walk. Sleeping on their side. Kneeling down with a grandchild. Chronic pain isn’t only a sensation—it’s a loss, and the grief is real.

I say out loud that doing nothing is a real option, because it takes the pressure out of the room. Mostly I want patients to know there’s a difference between choosing to live with something and being afraid to ask about it. Pain isn’t a volume knob wired straight from your knee to your brain. Attention and emotion are part of the circuit. That’s why what you’re doing and how you feel change what you feel.

Pain & Distraction

Brain imaging has shown that listening to music you love lowers pain ratings—and appears to switch on the body’s own built-in brake, quieting the signal before it ever gets upstairs. Good food, pleasant smells, being genuinely absorbed in something; all of it measurably turns pain down.

The point of treating pain was never to sit still more comfortably. It’s to get back to what you enjoy. Pleasure isn’t a trick for enduring pain. It’s the whole reason we’re treating it.

The information in this article is general and not a substitute for individual medical evaluation. Distraction and other non-drug techniques are intended to help manage pain, not identify its cause. New pain, pain following a fall or injury or a joint that gives way should be evaluated by a physician. Readers should consult a healthcare provider before beginning or changing any treatment.

For more information on Premier Joint & Orthopedic Care, call 337-628-4755 or visit premierorthoclinic.com.