Why Firefighters Are Better Pain Specialists – Ep 218

Most often, pain is classified as being acute or chronic. Pain can persist for days, months, or even years after an initial injury and can be difficult to treat. People with pain may experience anxiety, sleeplessness, and depression, all of which can compound the problem. In the first episode, we discussed what happened to me and how I could have dealt with my pain a little bit better. The second episode, we discussed how well our health system treats pain and last week we talked about pain myths and misconceptions, and I have been dying for this last episode where Dr. Kevin Cuccaro will give us the secret of why firefighters are better pain specialist than actual pain specialist. We Are Behind the Science of Pain Dr. Kevin Cuccaro said that the way they practice, teach, and talk to their patients is literally 50 to 60 behind the science of pain. That was difficult to overcome when it was Dr. Cuccaro going through that process and recognizing why people don't seem to get better with these pain injections. Why is it that when doctors do more injections, they seem to lead to more injections? How come people have an injection and say they're better and yet the medications all seem to change or it seems like the pain move somewhere else. So, they went to get back pain injections in their back and now they have neck pain and they get injections in their neck and they get shoulder pain then they get the injection in their shoulder. They weren’t getting better. That was what started Dr. Cuccaro's journey when it came to actually going back to the research and science of pain. It also influenced him to be a better pain specialist. Why Firefighters Are Better Pain Specialist There are at least 3 major contributors that create or construct pain. You have that sensory aspect that's the sensation coming from the body. And then you have that cognitive element which is the attention, the beliefs, and expectations you have. The final element is the emotion, the memory mood, and the meaning that is associated with that sensation. All 3 of those components come together to construct and experience pain. Which means for any pain in any moment and any time to truly understand it, you have to be thinking on those 3 dimensions. That becomes very difficult to explain to people, and it's difficult to think because we don't perceive our world that way. We think in cause and effect. That's the way the brain wants us to think because it's a survival-based mechanism. But, there's a community out there that has to think in 3 dimensions all the time to do what they do which is a public service, and that's the firefighter community. What Makes Them a Better Pain Specialist? You don't just go out there and say well we could throw water on it let's throw some more water on it let's keep throwing water on it and hope it gets better. Instead you go what's the fire in front of you, what's the therapy or what are the major contributors that I need to target with my therapies and so because firefighters are already thinking in 3 dimensions, with a little bit of basic pain science because they're already thinking in 3 dimensions they would be better pain specialist than pain specialists in most clinics out there because they already have the thinking down because they understand that pain is just like fires and the fire is similar to pain and has those 3 elements. Fire Triangle Fire triangle is a tool that firefighters use in order to fight fires and because fire is a dynamic process and in fire, there are always no matter how complex or simple the fire is there's always ...