Rory Hafford talks to Dr Raymond Victory about the thorny subject of chronic pain, the kind of people it affects and what we can do about it…   THOUSANDS of Irish people live with the problem of chronic pain every day. The exact figure is 13% of the population. That’s a lot of pain. And a lot of uncertainty.   Arthur C Klein wrote the book (literally) on Chronic Pain. He says the five worst things about chronic pain are:  

• The pain itself
• The uncertainty about whether and when you will get well
• The lack of a specific diagnosis
• The differing advice and opinions
• The difficulty sorting our facts from fallacies

“Anecdotal tales of ‘magic bullet’ cures come at you from every direction,” says Klein, who has conducted on-going studies on the subject. “Ask a thousand strangers about chronic pain and you’ll get a thousand different answers – and you’ll need to live a thousand years to pursue all of them.”   Dr Raymond Victory is a pain management specialist. More particularly, if you ask him how he would describe himself, he says he is an Interventional Pain Physician. In short, he’s the guy you go to when you can’t get no relief!!   Working from the Beacon Hospital in Dublin, Dr Victory got into the area the same way a lot of specialists do: via anaesthesia.   “Yeah, I started out in Anaesthesia and then branched off into pain medicine,” Dr Victory told Health News Ireland.   “We try to adopt a multi-disciplinary approach, where specialists like psychologists and physical therapists are all part of the team that sees the patient.”   Coping Mechanisms It would appear to be working. He says there is ‘significant evidence’ that people who attend pain management programmes improve their function and coping mechanisms when it comes to long-term pain.   So, what exactly is chronic pain? Dr Victory says it is pain that persists longer than three months and it mostly comes as a result of degenerative changes in the spine, joint disease, or following surgery.   “Take the example of breast surgery, for instance. One in five women will complain of nerve changes and changes in sensitivity as a result of breast surgery.”   He says there is nothing wrong with the surgery. Everything is done competently and according to the book. It’s just that nerves don’t particularly like being cut and can react in differing ways.   “Our particular specialty is nerve-block procedures around the spine. There are many ways you can approach this problem: you can burn a nerve to numb a joint; you can implant a device to help with pain, like a spinal cord stimulator, or you can implant a morphine pump.”   He says that it is generally older people who will find their way to him because it is the more degenerative diseases that result in nerve pain. However, that’s not always the case.   “We can see people right across the spectrum, from 18 to 80,” says Dr Victory, who is also the current President of the Irish Pain Society.   Chronic pain, it would appear, knows no boundaries.  

• If you feel you could benefit from a trip to see a pain specialist, give Dr Victory’s office a call on: 01-4065056. Or you can e-mail him on victory@slh.ie