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Pain Therapy False bravery for all pain
If you feel pain, you should take it seriously. Because the important warning signal of the body shows us clearly that something is wrong. However, those who "bite their teeth together" and bravely endure the discomfort run the risk of the condition lasting. Therefore, doctors advise again and again to a timely visit to the doctor to start immediately if needed with the treatment. In an interview with the news agency "dpa" health experts provide important information on the subject of "pain" and how to deal with it properly.
From alarm signal to independent illness
Whether slight upper abdominal pain, an unpleasant pulling in the shoulder or an unbearable stinging in the groin area: Pain represents an unpleasant sensory or emotional experience, which can occur in a variety of forms and manifestations. If the pain occurs acutely, it is actually a vital function, as the body tells us something is wrong and prevents serious damage. But the complaints can persist even though the cause has long since been eliminated. In this case, pain no longer acts as a warning signal, instead it becomes a permanent condition that often makes life hell for patients.
Pain: Not endure but treat. Image: underdogstudios - fotolia 23 million people suffer from chronic pain
"We always talk about chronic pain when it lasts longer than the healing process would have it," explains Gerhard Müller-Schwefel, Head of the Pain and Palliative Center Göppingen and President of the German Society for Pain Medicine to the "dpa". According to a recent study alone, this affects a total of 23 million people in Germany (28% of the participants), with 95% of cases not being caused by tumor diseases, according to the announcement of the Deutsche Schmerzgesellschaft e.V..
19.5 percent of the study participants had chronic, but not debilitating pain. By contrast, 7.4 percent met the criteria of permanent, non-tumor-related, debilitating pain. A total of 2.2% of the participants experience the symptoms even in a particularly violent form of a so-called "pain illness", which is associated with severe physical and mental limitations.
Repeated pain experience changes the routing of the signals
What makes the pain an independent disease in these cases, doctors can now understand well. "The nervous system is extremely adaptive," says Müller-Schwefel. "Through repeated experience of pain, the control processes in the transmission of signals change: Nerves react to even low stimuli or even produce the pain information itself." The result could be an increased sensitivity to touch, as it is possible that pain without apparent cause occur. Similarly, mental stress is a possible trigger: "They cause the filter functions of the body's own pain control no longer work and pain stimuli are switched through uncontrolled," explains Gerhard Müller-sulfur further.
30 years of daily pain after a bicycle accident
The development from acute pain to chronic pain can affect everyone and sometimes goes faster than one would expect. This shows the example of Neumünsteranerin Heike Norda, who suffered a knee injury in a bicycle accident. Several surgeries were necessary, but eventually nerve damage occurred during surgery. Since then, she has been in pain for the past 30 years daily, Norda reports the "dpa". The founder and director of the self-help group Chronic Pain and chairman of the association SchmerzLOS went on a true "doctors odyssey" and visited various professionals to find out a specific cause and thus a possible treatment of their complaints.
"But there was nothing that could have been done with imaging," Norda describes her frustrating search for an explanation. Instead, the teacher in everyday life remained only strong painkillers, but because of the side effects can also be very stressful. Finally, Heike Norda went to a pain clinic, where she learned to accept her illness and to control the symptoms.
Close cooperation of pain therapists, physiotherapists and psychotherapists
"The aim of the treatment is not to eliminate the pain - this will not succeed in chronic pain," explains Winfried Meißner, head of the Pain Management Department at the University Hospital Jena on. Instead, the patients would be taught how to deal with their disease as part of a so-called "multimodal pain therapy". It will be shown "[...] what activities they need to get started so that they feel better and become more efficient again". The work of pain therapists, physiotherapists and psychotherapists is closely linked, because "there are patients in whom injections, medications or physiotherapy are not enough," says Meißner. Rather, it is now known that psychological and social factors also play a role in the development of chronic pain.
According to Gerhard Mueller-Sulfur, it is particularly important to have acute pain treated as quickly as possible, because "this is the only way to prevent learning processes in the brain that can lead to chronic pain." However, with regard to the topic "pain", those affected would become involved in everyday life often come up against obstacles, because outsiders could not recognize, "when and why it is a bad," added Heike Norda. Therefore, you have to communicate a lot as a pain patient and find a way to deal with the disease. (No)