There is probably nothing more debilitating than chronic pain. Defined as pain lasting for six months or longer, chronic pain afflicts millions of people. There is no way to be completely sure of preventing chronic pain. It can strike at any stage of life, whether because of accident or disease. Chronic pain often long outlives its original cause, worsening over time and taking on a life of its own. Recent research has shown that chronic pain is destructive to the body. The longer chronic pain goes untreated, the worse it becomes. Chronic pain unleashes a cascade of harmful hormones, such as cortisol, that adversely affect the immune system and kidney function.
Many chronic pain sufferers wind up taking huge amounts of anti-inflammatory drugs. The NSAIDs (Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) like ibuprofen, which put them at risk for gastrointestinal bleeding and liver dysfunction. The newer class of pharmaceutical pain relievers, the COX-2 inhibitors, while an improvement in terms of side effects, still may cause some abdominal distress. Anti-inflammatory drugs, including aspirin and Aleve, were implicated in the deaths of 16,000 people in the USA in 2000, due to bleeding ulcers and related complications, according to the Federal Drug Abuse Network.
Research is also uncovering the fact that anxiety and depression are not so much responses to pain as the consequences of it. Pain and depression share the same neural pathways, the same circuitry. Serotonin and the endorphins that modulate healthy brain functioning also modulate depression. Chronic pain uses up serotonin like a car running out of gas. Functional-imaging scans reveal similar disturbances in brain chemistry for both chronic pain and for depression. The same medications are used by allopathic physicians to treat depression and pain. Depression and stressful events can enhance pain. Chronic pain sufferers usually respond to stress with more pain. |
