It's Not in Your Head

8 Why All Pain Treatments Don’t Work for Everyone (Part 1)

Dr. Dan Bates & Justine Feitelson Season 1 Episode 8

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0:00 | 22:23

The hard truth is it's normal for chronic pain treatments not to work. But how many patients do you actually have to treat to improve things for just one? Managing expectations is hard enough; it's even harder when they're unrealistic. Unfortunately, there is often little conversation around how likely medications are to actually work in various settings. This is where the concept 'number needed to treat' is critical to understand as a patient. We dive into this concept, explain the ecological fallacy, and go through how to trial medications. We also delve into improving communications with your provider around personal preferences, and define what evidence-based medicine actually looks like so experienced clinicians can overcome these realities.

Resources:

www.iniyh.com

https://www.instagram.com/iniyhpodcast/

Timestamps:

00:00 Official Intro

00:17 Intro - It's normal for treatments not to work

03:07 Number Needed to treat within Neuropathic Pain

05:06 Trial it for 6 weeks

06:07 Context is important in Number needed to treat

10:23 It's an Average - the ecological fallacy

15:00 Why do we do it this way?

16:04 The experienced Clinician can predict

18:15 Develop good communication with your Physician

19:18 Evidence-Based Medicine

20:34 Final Point

21:54 Disclaimer