Harlingen VA welcomes UTRGV chronic pain study

HARLINGEN, TEXAS (ValleyCentral) — Local veterans are welcoming a study from the University of Texas at Rio Grande Valley about chronic pain treatment.

The study was funded by a $500,000 grant from the Trauma Research and Combat Care Casualty Collective and will look into how to treat extreme pain without opioids in hopes of a long-term solution.

VA Chief of Mental Health, Jessica Grogan says veterans are in need of long-term non-opioid treatments.

"Long-term, those medications don’t really serve very well," said Grogan. "They have problems with effectiveness over the long term, veterans find that they need to take larger and larger doses to get the same effect and often that can lead to problems with addiction.”

Dr. Grogan then expanded on why opioids are currently used and how the study’s findings would benefit veterans.

“Opioids are used because they’re a quick solution," said Grogan. "If I can give a prescription that would hopefully help the pain, that’s a great starting place, but what we’ve seen in long-term use just suggests that we need to know more about these medications and also about the other options that would work. Interventions that don’t involve opioids are going to serve veterans very well.”

Grogan recommends VA non-medication treatments for those struggling with chronic pain until the study provides further evidence.

“We have an interdisciplinary pain team here, and we offer psychological treatments, behavioral therapy for treatment of chronic pain, we offer chiropractic services, we offer physical therapy.”