It’s National Pain Awareness Week

November 5 to 11, 2023, is National Pain Awareness Week, which focuses on chronic pain. Did you know that nearly eight million Canadians live with chronic pain? Without a dramatic shift in how we prevent and treat chronic pain, this number is expected to grow to 9 million by 2030.

The cost of chronic pain on our society is enormous, From the Canadian Pain Task Force Report: March 2021, “According to Health Canada’s analyses, the total direct (health care) and indirect (lost production) cost of chronic pain in 2019 was $38.2 to $40.3 billion. Direct costs (expenditures for physician’s services, prescription drugs, and hospital inpatient and outpatient care) were between $15.1 and $17.2 billion, representing over 10% of total combined health expenditures for these costs.”

Thankfully, initiatives are in place to reduce chronic pain’s impact on Canadians. In 2021, Health Canada released its report, An Action Plan for Pain in Canada. Learn more over at Pain Canada, the self-described “home base” for Canadians living with chronic pain.

One of the risk factors for chronic pain is inappropriate or inadequate management of surgical pain. SolvingPain’s Perioperative Pain Management Pathway aims to provide physicians with a set of clear, concise evidence-based best practices that optimize pain management and reduces those risks. We encourage all Canadian health practitioner who are involved with treating surgical pain to explore the Pathway and share it with their colleagues.

As anesthesiologists we are the medical field’s experts in pain management. Our role regarding chronic pain is highlighted over in this blog post, which we published on OntariosAnesthesiologists.ca back in September for Pain Awareness Month.

While chronic pain is currently a significant challenge for Canadians, we believe that through research, outreach and new treatments, and we can dramatically reduce its impact on our society.