As a medical specialty, pain medicine tends to be more open minded than more traditional approaches to handling chronic pain. But even within the specialty we can be close-minded at times. We can get set in our ways. We can fail to consider that even pain medicine evolves over time. The solution is for the specialty to adopt a more open mind toward everything from diagnoses to treatments.
KindlyMD believes that a more open mind leads to discussions about alternatives, including applying for a Medical Card. Here in Utah, a state-issued Medical Card gives chronic pain patients access to a particular form of treatment they may have never tried before. It is a treatment that works very well for thousands of our patients.
Of course, a Medical Card isn't the only avenue for alternative treatments. There are many others. The point is to not be locked into a single way of thinking. Chronic pain is very personal. It requires an equally personal approach from pain clinics, pain medicine practitioners, and patients.
As a Utah pain clinic, KindlyMD serves patients from all walks of life. We work with professionals and blue-collar workers. We work with men and women. Virtually anyone struggling with chronic pain is a good candidate to visit KindlyMD. At the heart of what we do is plant-based medicine.
Plant-based treatments are actually not new. Eastern medicine has taken tremendous advantage of plants throughout human history. Western medicine has historically avoided them. We feel it is time to change that. We could use more plant-based medicines in Western healthcare.
For the record, this is what the Utah Medical Card is all about. Receiving a card means opening the door to plant-based treatments as an alternative to the more traditional approach to pain management. A treatment rooted in plant-based medicines just works better for some people.
One of the things we have been learning in pain medicine over the last two decades is just how much healthcare relies on static diagnoses and treatment options. But we have also learned that good health isn't static. What do we mean by that? We mean that there is no uniform standard for everyone.
Pain management is the perfect example. Not all patients experience pain in the same way. Not all patients exhibit the same pain threshold. Not all doctors interpret responses to the pain scale the same way. There is so much variation that it is impossible to come up with a static diagnosis and treatment applicable to every patient.
We can establish general guidelines. We can establish basic recommendations based on established facts. But when push comes to shove, healthcare needs to be flexible enough to accommodate the many differences between patients and their experiences. That's something Western medicine hasn't done very well throughout history.
A more open-minded approach to Western medicine recognizes that it is possible to pursue whatever works for patients, within reason. From our point of view, Medical Cards and plant-based medicines are well within reason. Plant-based medicine has thousands of years of history behind it. Medical Cards give patients access to it.
Throughout human history, we have treated injuries and illnesses through a variety of means flexible enough to accommodate individual needs. Somewhere along the way, Western medicine lost much of its flexibility. It's time to change that. Specifically, where pain medicine is concerned, we need more pain clinics adopting a more open-minded approach. The more we open our minds to new treatment possibilities, the better we will be at offering genuine pain relief.
