For most of Kaitlyn Ennis’ 12-year life she has been in physical pain due to pancreatitis, a disease doctors diagnosed her with when she was just 18 months old.
In the beginning the condition and the pain were acute, coming and going in spurts. The past year or so however, Kaitlyn has endured chronic pain on an almost daily basis, causing her to miss school and spend more time than she would have liked in the hospital.
“It makes me irritable,” Kaitlyn said of the pain she feels when her pancreas becomes inflamed. “I just want it to go away.”
In January 2015, Texas Children’s Hospital launched an interdisciplinary pain medicine clinic to treat patients like Kaitlyn, who suffer from chronic pain, a condition that affects 20 percent to 30 percent of children worldwide. The clinic is part of the Pain Medicine Division of the Department of Pediatric Anesthesiology and is one of the only clinics of its kind in the Greater Houston area.
“By the time patients arrive to the pain clinic, they often have seen multiple physicians and specialists and are often frustrated with feeling neglected by the health care system or are feeling a sense of diagnostic ambiguity, as there is often not a clear cut anatomical explanation for chronic pain,” said Grace Kao, a pediatric pain psychologist with the pain clinic and assistant professor at Baylor College of Medicine.
“Meeting families where they are and offering hope and support comprises a substantial part of our role as a pain clinic team.”
In a patient’s initial intake evaluation, members of the pain clinic team provide a thorough pain history assessment, psychosocial interviews and thorough physical exams by pain physicians and physical therapist. All of this information is used to help develop a comprehensive treatment plan which is shared with the family in a joint feedback session at the end of the appointment.
Knowing pain can affect so many parts of life, the pain clinic team typically provides recommendations in multiple arenas: medication management, medical procedures, lifestyle changes, physical and occupational therapy, school accommodation and pain psychology.
“The interdisciplinary clinic model provides the valuable benefit of combining multiple services within the same appointment and creates the opportunity for clinicians to inform each other’s recommendations on the spot,” Kao said. “Patients often return for follow up with multiple team providers to target different parts of their pain picture.”
When Kaitlyn and her family first came to the pain clinic, they were looking for a way to manage the girl’s chronic pain without admitting her into the hospital.
“We wanted to be able to manage her pain at home,” said Kaitlyn’s mother, Sara Ennis. “Admitting her into the hospital every month or so was not working.”
After examining Kaitlyn, the team at the pain clinic put her on a medication regime and armed her with tools in pain psychology, including guided imagery. Soon thereafter, Kaitlyn and her family were managing her episodes of acute pain in the comfort of their home instead of taking her to the hospital. Kaitlyn’s chronic pain was nearly gone.
“The treatment they provided was life changing,” Sara Ennis said. “I am so impressed with the team; nothing is trivial to them and as a result, they made life easier for a lot of us.”
Dr. Caro Monico, a member of the pain medicine clinic team and an assistant professor of pain management at Baylor College of Medicine, said the foundation of the clinic’s treatment is to reintegrate children into school, physical activity and normal life.
“Simply put,” she said, “we want our patients to feel normal and for many we can accomplish that goal.”
Since opening, the pain clinic has seen thousands of patients from around the United States. A director will be coming on board in September and the staff has grown to nine inpatient pain medicine physicians, four chronic pain physicians, two nurse practitioners, two physical therapists, one pain psychologist and one pain registered nurse.
For more information about the clinic, click here.