Better support for non-opioid pain management options is crucial: experts
VANCOUVER — Lynn Cooper wanted to be an urban planner as a university student. But her dream came to an abrupt end with a workplace accident, sentencing her to a life of curtailed ambitions and chronic pain.
Thirty years later, Cooper said it’s hard for anyone who hasn’t experienced long-lasting pain to understand what it’s like.
“Everything about you is impacted by unrelenting and under-managed pain,” said Cooper, president of the Canadian Pain Coalition.
“There’s always the stigma that’s attached to it that you’re a complainer, a drug-seeker or a malingerer, and if you just tried harder and got over yourself you would be fine.”