Cover story: coping with chronic pain
Thousands of Hongkongers suffer some form of chronic pain. But medical specialists are offering new treatments tohelp sufferers rebuild their shattered lives, writesElaine Yau
When retiree Fong Yick-hung first felt a mild tingling sensation in the right side of his face 20 years ago, he had no idea that it would become a searing ache that would rack him day and night. The pain struck at all hours, and sometimes left the right side of his face immobile.
"I couldn't even speak as the slightest movement induced excruciating pain," he says.
Fong, 72, underwent all kinds of treatment including acupuncture and physiotherapy, but to no avail. His respite came only in 2009 when a public hospital doctor transferred him to pain management specialists at Queen Mary Hospital.
In 2010, he underwent minimally-invasive surgery, where high-frequency radio waves were used to cauterise the trigeminal nerve, the largest cranial nerve that conducts sensations from the upper, middle and lower portions of the face and oral cavity to the brain.
"I only feel numbness on the right side of my face now, which is way better than the pain," says Fong. "But, so far, no one can tell me what initiated the pain."
Pain management specialists say an insufficient understanding of the physiology of pain means many people suffer from chronic pain without obvious causes. To increase knowledge of pain treatments, the University of Hong Kong Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine recently set up the city's first Laboratory and Clinical Research Institute for Pain with HK$1.5 million in funding from the faculty and government.