- Hello, my name is Amine El Kadmiri with Nashville General Hospital.

On today's For Your Good Health, we are going to talk about how we manage pain in cancer patients.

When the patient comes in, we talk to them about the pain, you know, how severe is the pain?

Is it, you know, something that's constant?

Is it something that's intermittent?

You know, the nature of the pain also is very important and that can give you a clue of as to what you know is going on.

So when the patient usually comes into us, you know, they're already taking, you know, over the counter medication for pain like painkillers.

Some of them will, will be doing things like, you know, warm baths or, you know, or cold, you know, cold therapy, like applying ice.

Soon as the pain starts, you know, take your medication, you know, the way it's prescribed to you and follow those instructions.

And if the pain, you know, medication that you're receiving is not enough to control your pain, that's something that's important to bring up when you see your doctor.

So we use a scale of, you know, zero to 10 when, where zero is no pain and the 10 is the worst pain that you you've had in your life.

But still the pain is real.

So, you know, whether you have a high tolerance or a low tolerance for pain, you know, we still have to meet the patient where they are and then provide that relief.

If you're experiencing a significant change in your symptoms, that it's very important to bring that up with your doctor.

So if you have, you know, sudden, you know, onset of a new pain or, or your pain was well controlled and now all of a sudden, you know, it's, you're again suffering a significant amount of pain.

I think that's very important to let your doctor know, you know, almost right away.

And, you know, most of the time we're actually able to control that pain, you know, fairly well.

And, and it's one of the priorities because at the end of the day, you know, no matter what stage cancer you have, and we will manage that obviously, but it's your quality of life that's important and we want you to be able to enjoy your life, you know, because we want you to be able to enjoy the moment because that's what matters at the end of the day.

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