Cancer Pain Management

What Causes Cancer-Related Pain?

Cancer-related pain can be the result of the cancer itself or a side effect of the treatment you’re receiving. As cancer grows and destroys healthy tissue, you may feel pain. Or, if you have a tumor that presses on a nerve or your bones and organs, it can be very painful.

Cancer treatments like radiation, chemotherapy, and surgery may also cause painful symptoms that come and go, or are constant. Although cancer pain may be inevitable, it’s possible to manage it so you can function better in your daily routine.

What is Cancer Pain Management?

When you and your health care team, including the expert physicians at Florida Pain Medicine, develop a plan to help manage the painful symptoms, treatment, and side effects of cancer, you’re creating a cancer pain management plan. The first step in controlling your pain is to discuss it with your doctors. You know the severity of your pain best, so if you can convey that to your doctors, they’ll be able to recommend the most effective ways to manage it.

As you develop a plan, it may be helpful to let your health care team know the kinds of pain you’re feeling, when you feel pain, and how intense it is. It helps to use a rating scale such as zero is no pain and 10 is the worst pain you can imagine. This helps your health care providers understand what’s causing your pain and how to reduce it.

How is Cancer Pain Treated?

The types of treatments you receive for your cancer pain largely depends on the kind of cancer you have, where it’s located in your body, and what stage it’s at. If your pain is mild to moderate, you may be able to take non-opioid or non-narcotic anti-inflammatory medications. Other cancer pain management treatments include:

• Surgery to cut or block nerves from sending pain to your brain
• Nerve blocks in which the doctor injects anesthetics and steroids into your spinal cord to block pain
• Epidural injections into the space around your spinal cord
• Treatments to shrink tumors, including chemotherapy or radiation
• Radioactive injections to relieve bone pain
• Radiofrequency ablation to heat and destroy tumors

Your team of doctors works together to develop a cancer pain management treatment plan that helps you get the treatment you need while making you as comfortable as possible. The interventional pain specialists at Florida Pain Medicine are experts at treating and managing all kinds of cancer-related pain and symptoms. They understand what you’re going through and take a comprehensive, multidisciplinary approach to cancer pain management so you can "Restore Function & Relive Life".

Call or schedule a consultation online today to get help managing your cancer pain.