Seeking a Life Without Chronic Pain

April 18th, 2009

admin

While most of us certainly take no enjoyment in pain, pain is not our enemy but rather serves as a means to allow our bodies to tell us that we are doing or have done something that is harmful to ourselves. Pain also tells us when something in our body is being damaged whether by a failure of the body itself or by injury. Although experiencing pain is not pleasant, it is a rather effective means of inhibiting destructive behaviors that would have limited the survival of humankind through the ages.

To understand the importance of pain, we need look no further than to the development of children with congenital analgesia, or the inability to feel pain. In such cases, these children act without the normal inhibitions that pain normally provides. Most children are drawn to fire, but will quickly learn that fire hurts after experiencing a small burn or when their parents remind them of pain they have experienced in the past. However, children with congenital analgesia will happily play with fire and be burned or climb and jump from a tree if left unguarded only to break bones or worse. Without the ability to feel pain, these children lack the fundamental feedback mechanisms to ensure their own health.

Although pain is extremely important, there are times at which it occurs, yet fails to serve any useful function. Such is the case when pain occurs for those with fibromyalgia, neuralgia or forms of nerve damage. In these cases, the firing of the nerves to indicate pain does not protect, but is only the result of the condition.

In a similar situation, the pains experienced as a result of aging serve no real useful purpose. The pains exist because evolution does not take into account the wear we endure from aging and simply allowed our bodies to continue to tell us that our joints are rubbing or our muscles are strained despite the fact that we can do little about it.

One last important area in which pain serves no purpose is in the chronic pain experienced by those with many degenerative diseases and cancer. In these cases, our bodies continue to tell us that something is very wrong despite the inability of the body to correct the problem. The issue here is that the brain does not provide the built-in ability to recognize that the pain is no longer serving a useful function and should be ignored.

All this unnecessary pain has significant effects on those who experience it. Chronic pain causes fatigue, interferes with sleep and can cause depression and anxiety in many sufferers. Some studies have found rewiring of the brain circuitry in those with chronic pain. Chronic pain sufferers will often have difficulty even leading normal day-to-day lives. From the view of the patient, the pain does nothing to aid them in improving their condition. From the view of the body, the expression of pain is no longer simply unnecessary, but is in fact destructive to overall bodily health.

To combat chronic pain, the roughly 20 to 30% of the population that suffer from it will turn to many options. These options range from forms of exercise to alternative therapies such as acupressure and acupuncture, to both off the shelf and prescription forms of painkillers, all the way to the use of opiates and the medical use of marijuana. The effectiveness and side effects of each approach varies considerably and different people will use varying approaches based on their level of pain, the level of relief and the tolerance to side effects. In addition, risks of addiction and the duration of effectiveness are also important factors that affect the use of pain reduction techniques.

With chronic pain being such a debilitator, there are two areas of research that are important to pain management. One finding from a few years ago was that those playing immersive video games were less aware of their pain. This finding is important because it suggests that there are ways to cause the brain to feel less pain simply through a form of training or distraction. The obvious result of this is the potential for reduction in use of drugs with negative side effects.

Another very recent finding that is important was the development of a very slow release anesthetic by the Children’s Hospital Boston. The creators of the specialized fat particle capable of slow, safe release of a painkiller suggest that it could release anesthetic for durations as long as months after a single injection. This development is very important because it could allow the minimal required dose for pain control to be administered over long periods to minimize toxicity to the body and side effects to the patient More importantly, it could allow chronic pain sufferers the ability to become functioning, happy members of society by eliminating the daily and often hourly battle against pain.

While pain itself is not our enemy, to those with chronic pain the persistent suffering is likely to cause a difference of opinion. When the need to manage the pain overrides most other daily activities and impedes the ability to stay healthy, it is no longer serving its intended purpose and needs to be turned off. It is in these situations that pain, the messenger, needs to be told that they have been heard, but are no longer telling us anything useful.

Related Links:

http://www.springerlink.com/content/c822w12311710276/

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070802/pain_series_3_070802?s_name=&no_ads=

http://www.pain.com/

http://webhome.idirect.com/~readon/pain.html

http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2008/11/26/brain-crps.html

.html

http://anesthesia.medicine.dal.ca/clinical/pmu/patients/facts-about-chronic-pain.php

http://www.pfizer.ca/english/newsroom/press%20releases/default.asp?s=1&year=2007&releaseID=253

http://www.medicalmarijuanainformation.com/therapeuticuses/patientGroups.php?groupID=18

http://www.disabled-world.com/medical/pharmaceutical/marijuana/

http://www.worksafesask.ca/files/wcb_sask/chronic_pain.htm