Pain -An unpleasant and alarming sensory and emotional experience associated with
actual or potential tissue damage. The word "pain" comes from the Latin: poena meaning
- a punishment, a fine, a penalty.
Pain causes the person to withdraw from potentially damaging situations.
Pain acts to protect a damaged body part while it heals or is attempting to heal.
Pain experience prompts the person to avoid those situations in the future.
Pain is initiated by:
Stimulation of nociceptors (a sensory receptor that responds to potentially damaging
stimuli) in the peripheral nervous system.
Damage to or malfunction of the peripheral nervous system.
Damage to or malfunction of the central nervous system.
Once the painful stimulus is removed and the body has healed pain may resolve quickly.
However, pain can persist despite removal of the stimulus and apparent healing of
the body; and sometimes pain arises in the absence of any detectable stimulus, damage
or pathology.
Pain can be experienced for weeks, months or even years.
Pain is a major symptom in many medical conditions, and can significantly interfere
with a person's quality of life and general functioning.
Pain may be referred to as acute (short term) or chronic (long term).
Although pain is a very real problem for the individual - the feeling of pain is
invisible to others. How pain affects the individual is another matter - continuous
pain (chronic) can be extremely debilitating adding to emotional problems that may
be experienced by the individual due to pain.
Emotions such as:
Anxiety.
Fear.
Anger.
Frustration
Distress.
Emotions can make your pain worse. Symptoms of many physical illnesses can be made
worse by emotional upset. Therefore, it is important to treat the emotional as well
as the physical causes of the problem.
Sometimes pain can be made worse by social or work-related events such as:
Being unable to see friends.
The loss of a job.
Continuous pain can be exhausting, undermining a persons ability to continue with
everyday activity. All of which adds to existing levels stress. Pain may effect treatment
for depression.
Managing pain and how it affects a person requires an understanding of what is causing
the pain and the type of pain it is. Learning about pain and its causes, the type
of pain it is, is important and should precede the use of any pain therapies available
to ensure that the maximum help is obtained.
Pain Diary - When seeking help from a health professional it would help them if the
pain can be described as well as located. Keeping a diary, an explanation of the
symptoms will help them to understand the problem better.
Describe where the pain is such as:
Is it in one part of the body or in more than one place.
Does it start in one place and gradually spread during the day.
Blunt Intermittent Searing Comes and goes Constant Moderate
Cold Miserable Splitting Cutting Nagging Stabbing
Nauseating Stinging Crushing Niggling
Dull Overwhelming Tiring
Electric-shock like Excruciating Piercing Intense
Does anything relieve or worsen the pain such as:
Is it better or worse when standing, sitting or lying down?
Does heat or cold provide relief?
Do painkillers relieve the pain - do they stop or reduce the pain. If the pain is
stopped or relieved for how long?
Is the pain constant or does it come and go?
Does it get worse with movement?
Is it worse at night?
Does it prevent sleep?
Does it interrupt sleep?
How does pain impact on daily life such as:
Does it prevent bending or stretching for something?
Does it prevent sitting for very long?
Does it disrupt concentration?
Does it disrupt or prevent walking over short or long distances?
Pain can be an all encompassing problem, it can exacerbate other disease symptoms.
Pain is very disruptive and destructive, bearing down on a person causing misery,
depression and hopelessness. It can be difficult to understand or treat.
The more descriptive a pain diary is, the better a health professional can approach
and provide support.
Pain may effect treatment for depression.
Researchers Matthew J. Bair, M.D., formerly of the Regenstrief Institute, and colleagues
uncovered the connection by analysing the results of a clinical trial of 573 depression
people taking medications like Prozac, Paxil or Zoloft. Their findings are published
in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine.
Although depression improved in most of the people after three months of drug therapy,
24 percent had persistently high depression scores. The therapy was most likely to
fail among those who reported moderate to severe pain at the beginning of their treatment.
"In particular, the odds of a poor depression treatment response were twice as high
in people with moderate pain at baseline and three to four times as high in those
with severe pain," Bair says.
Factors like pain may help explain why antidepressants have a mixed record of success,
Bair says. Between 50 and 70 percent of depressed people find only partial relief
with their medications.
Researchers have long known that pain and depression often go hand in hand, but there
are few studies of how pain might affect depression treatment. In the Bair study,
more than two-thirds of the people reported some degree of pain at the start of their
treatment. Twenty-five percent said their pain was mild, 30 percent had moderate
pain and 14 percent said they had severe pain.
"We believe a treatment model that incorporates assessment and treatment of both
depression and pain is desirable," Bair says.
Centre For The Advancement Of Health (2004, January 29). Pain May Interfere With
Depression Improvement. ScienceDaily. Retrieved February 9, 2008, Source - sciencedaily.com
