{"id":219745,"date":"2024-07-10T18:30:00","date_gmt":"2024-07-10T18:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=219745"},"modified":"2024-07-10T19:47:34","modified_gmt":"2024-07-10T19:47:34","slug":"veteran-with-chronic-pain-receives-life-changing-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=219745","title":{"rendered":"Veteran with chronic pain receives life-changing care"},"content":{"rendered":"

Robert Judge\u2019s chronic pain overshadowed every aspect of his life.<\/p>\n

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More social and happier in his everyday life<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

His pain was constant and overwhelming. It ruled over his social life, physical activity and mental health. After having multiple operations, including lower back and kidney removal surgeries, this 65-year-old Veteran from Illinois knew he needed to get his pain under control.<\/p>\n

Judge began participating in VA\u2019s TelePain Management program to help him start addressing his pain. TelePain Management connects Veterans to virtual pain management care which includes occupational therapy and mental health care. Judge said the program Completely turned his life around.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithin six weeks of going into this program, I became my old self. I get up in the morning and I\u2019m cheerful. Before, I was very short with people because I was always in some sort of pain. Now, I have the tools and abilities to manage my pain and my life,\u201d he shared.<\/p>\n

Virtual pain management care<\/h2>\n

The virtual aspect of the TelePain Management program enabled Judge to receive care that he otherwise would have had to travel long distances for. Judge lives nearly 300 miles from the closest VA in Chicago. To attend in-person appointments he needed to spend multiple hours on the road and often stay in the city overnight.<\/p>\n

TelePain Management enabled him to connect with his VA care team from home and his local Clinical Resource Hub<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can communicate with my doctors and I can communicate more openly and freely. TelePain has been probably one of the best services I\u2019ve ever been involved with because somebody listened to my story when I told them what was going on,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Becoming his old self<\/h2>\n

Judge\u2019s success with TelePain Management empowered him to pick up old hobbies and exercise more. He has gained more energy and flexibility because of the care he received and the pain management skills he developed. He has also lost more than 60 pounds.<\/p>\n

Judge also struggled with his mental health as his chronic pain led to him experiencing depression. \u201cUntil you get that pain under control or remove as much of it as possible, you don\u2019t understand how far deep you\u2019ve gone down into that dark rabbit hole of pain. And you don\u2019t know how far you\u2019re down there because it just consumes you,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

TelePain Management enabled him to reduce his pain so he could focus on his mental health. Judge says he is now more social and happier in his everyday life.<\/p>\n

Now Judge encourages other Veterans to use TelePain Management and other VA virtual services. Whether he\u2019s at a VA facility or even around his town, he lets others in pain know about his experience. \u201cWhen I meet somebody like myself who\u2019s struggling and I know they\u2019re a Veteran, I always tell them, \u2018Hey if you have pain or need pain management, there\u2019s this VA program.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

To learn more about VA\u2019s TelePain Management program, talk to your VA care team. For more information on telehealth resources, visit the VA Telehealth Services page<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Robert Judge\u2019s chronic pain overshadowed every aspect of his life. More social and happier in his everyday life His pain was constant and overwhelming. It ruled over his social life, physical activity and mental health. After having multiple operations, including lower back and kidney removal surgeries, this 65-year-old Veteran from Illinois knew he needed to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":219747,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1186],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-219745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","category-pain-management"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=219745"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219745\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":219751,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219745\/revisions\/219751"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/219747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=219745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=219745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=219745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}