chronic pain

While on my rural prac I encountered a chronic pain patient for the very first time. He was a middle aged man who had a 10 year history of lower back pain, which resulted in him quitting work and being on workers compensation for a very long time. When I first assessed him, he was very specific about where his pain was, and on physical examination I was able to establish some problems which I could treat. However, with each visit he made more and more problems became evident, and he kept remembering more things that he couldn’t do. So I became quite confused, even though I realised he was a chronic pain patient, I just wasn’t sure what exactly to do.
So I spoke with both my supervisors and they gave me a lot of education on chronic pain, because I feel this is an area we don’t get to spend a huge amount of time on in class. They educated me on the best management strategies for him, and that hands on treatment would work short term but he needed longer term management. So when my patient came in again, we spent the whole session just talking. He asked me why I wasn’t `treating` him as he always felt 99% better after treatment. I explained that he needed a much broader approach to his pain. I booked him in for hydro sessions, which he absolutely loved and which helped to keep his pain well under control. We also managed to address other issues in his daily life which may have been affecting him. The end result was a very happy patient who I felt happy to discharge from physio as I knew he had taken everything on board and would manage fine. After all the help and information from my supervisors I feel much more able at managing patients with more chronic pain now and will take the same approach as I did this time but modify it for each patient