• Acute Pain: lasts Less than 3 months. Tissue damage is the typical cause, and it eventually heals completely. The primary purpose of acute pain is a warning signal – it helps you preserve your life.

  • Chronic Pain: lasts 3 months or more, often years, long past the expected tissue healing time. Beyond just feeling pain, you suffer because chronic pain can hijack & destroy your life

  • Bio-Pharmacological Approach: focuses on medication to block pain signals and reduce inflammation. This works well for acute pain, but does not address the suffering and loss of function that define chronic pain.

  • Bio-Behavioral Approach: retrains both brain and body by helping you to function, so that you can begin to enjoy life again. The medical literature shows that this is the most effective approach to healing the whole person who is suffering from chronic pain. It assumes that a bit like cancer, pain has grown far beyond the original protective pain signal and has negatively affected many different parts of the brain. Chronic pain impacts all aspects of your life- your work, school and personal relationships.

The biobehavioral approach works best using a team, with you, the patient, at the center. Other team members may include your PCP, a chronic pain informed physical therapist, a chronic pain informed behavioral health therapist and sometimes a pharmacist or nutritionist. The team addresses the many issues that brought on by suffering from chronic pain like depression, anxiety, insomnia, loss of self-confidence and loss of self-esteem.