Chronic
Pain
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While acute pain is a normal sensation triggered in the nervous system to alert
you to possible injury and the need to take care of yourself, chronic pain is
different. Chronic pain persists. Pain signals keep firing in the nervous system
for weeks, months, even years. There may have been an initial mishap -- sprained
back, serious infection, or there may be an ongoing cause of pain -- arthritis,
cancer, ear infection, but some people suffer chronic pain in the absence of
any past injury or evidence of body damage. Many chronic pain conditions affect
older adults. Common chronic pain complaints include headache, low back pain,
cancer pain, arthritis pain, neurogenic pain (pain resulting from damage to
the peripheral nerves or to the central nervous system itself), psychogenic
pain (pain not due to past disease or injury or any visible sign of damage inside
or outside the nervous system).
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Medications, acupuncture, local electrical stimulation, and brain stimulation,
as well as surgery, are some treatments for chronic pain. Some physicians use
placebos, which in some cases has resulted in a lessening or elimination of
pain. Psychotherapy, relaxation and medication therapies, biofeedback, and behavior
modification may also be employed to treat chronic pain.
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Many people with chronic pain can be helped if they understand all the causes
of pain and the many and varied steps that can be taken to undo what chronic
pain has done. Scientists believe that advances in neuroscience will lead to
more and better treatments for chronic pain in the years to come.
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Clinical investigators have tested chronic pain patients and found that they
often have lower-than-normal levels of endorphins in their spinal fluid. Investigations
of acupuncture include wiring the needles to stimulate nerve endings electrically
(electroacupuncture), which some researchers believe activates endorphin systems.
Other experiments with acupuncture have shown that there are higher levels of
endorphins in cerebrospinal fluid following acupuncture. Investigators are studying
the effect of stress on the experience of chronic pain. Chemists are synthesizing
new analgesics and discovering painkilling virtues in drugs not normally prescribed
for pain.
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American Chronic Pain Association (ACPA)
American Council for Headache Education
National Headache Foundation
National Foundation for the Treatment
of Pain
Mayday Fund [For Pain Research]
American Pain Foundation
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Ankylosing Spondylitis
