health pros Roger Spencer, M.D.

The ghost of addiction in pain management

As more physicians begin to rely primarily on medications to treat chronic pain, there is a growing number of Americans becoming addicted to prescription pain medicines.

Dr. Roger Spencer, a veteran anesthesiologist and pain specialist with Central Florida Pain Management, believes that the biggest misconception is that narcotics treat pain. “They don’t treat pain,” he says. “They just temporarily relieve symptoms that soon return.”

Dr. Spencer has witnessed patients making the dangerous choice of taking prescribed pain medications to treat their emotional pain and not their physical pain.

“Unfortunately, I’ve seen more people do this than I should. Since joining the practice in August of last year I have sent twelve people to detox and told another thirty-four to attend a twelve-step program,” he says. “I’ve even had patients die, but we want to get them help before that happens.”

Along with his years of anesthesiology and pain management experience, Dr. Spencer says one of the main reasons he was brought aboard at Central Florida Pain Management is the fact he is addictiontrained, meaning he has the ability to identify people who are at risk for addiction and help those who are already dependent.

“We do perform random drug screenings and require patients to sign opioid contracts and monitor them as best as we can,” he says.

Nevertheless, Dr. Spencer believes the answer to truly treating pain depends on using multiple techniques such as interventional and pharmacological modalities to move beyond the simple use of narcotics to more advanced treatments such as nerve and joint blocks, epidural injections, and other sophisticated medical management.

“You have to treat pain at the source,” he says. “Only then can you truly begin to work toward being pain-free.”