Chronic pain

Chronic pain has attracted more and more attention lately as a condition in its own right, regardless of the disorder that started it. We now know more about the central mechanisms involved in modulation and modification of pain perception and understand better the multitude of factors involved in bringing it about. A similarity to depression is no coincidence, even though the two entities are not the same. Currently, the most often recommended treatment is interdisciplinary and multimodal, a combination of treatments leading to better results than any one mode. This paper presents some treatment recommendations that may enable the primary physician to treat this condition without referral to a pain center.