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Health & Fitness

When Pain Does Not Go Away

Chronic pain can change a person from an outgoing, happy individual into a withdrawn, complaining, drug-addicted, nasty, pathetic person that everyone who can, avoids.

I explained where the pain that comes out of nowhere really comes from. But what about the pain that came, but never went away? That can be anywhere from annoying to devastating. You can live with pain if you have to, but you don't get used to it. You just learn how to suffer. 

Let's review the simplified anatomy of pain: There is a pain receptor or nerve ending. There is the nerve that goes from the receptor and continues up the spinal cord tracts. Finally, there is the brain, which interprets the signal as pain. 

So, something happens... you stub your toe, you get into a car accident, you have a fall, etc. If there is enough inflammation or pressure, the pain nerve ending sends a signal through the nerve, up the spinal cord and to the brain. The brain interprets that signal as pain, then sends a signal to your mouth which says:  "Ouch!" If it's bad enough, your mouth says: "Oooooowwwwww!!!!!!" The difference between "Ouch!" and "Oooooowwwwww!!!!!!" has to do with the number of nerve endings that are activated. 

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Drugs are sometimes effective in masking the pain, but unless the source of the pain is addressed, drugs become ineffective, requiring higher doses or stronger, more addicting drugs.

Thankfully, most of the time, the inflammation recedes and pressure is relieved on its own. After a few minutes or a few days or weeks, the pain is gone. Sometimes though, the pain goes on... and on... and on... and never goes away. Chronic pain is not only unpleasant, it is dangerous! 

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The danger is what is commonly called "Chronic Pain Syndrome." I have seen it destroy lives. It progresses step-by-step until the person is debilitated, disabled and miserable. It affects his or her family and friends. It can change a person from an outgoing, happy individual into a withdrawn, complaining, drug-addicted, nasty, pathetic person that everyone who can, avoids. 

You see, your body does not become dulled to chronic pain. Quite the opposite. Chronic pain sensitizes you to pain. The threshold of the nerve ending lowers, making them more easily triggered. The signal travels up the spinal cord more quickly, the way that faster pathways are created by practicing piano or swinging at a baseball. Practice makes perfect. Signals also begin to spill over to neighboring areas of the spinal cord, causing referred pain in other, uninjured, parts of the body. Finally, the brain begins to interpret other sensations such as warmth, cold, or light touch as painful. You can get to the point where almost everything hurts.

I knew one person very well, a good family man who, after three back surgeries, was told by the doctors that there was nothing more they could do for him. He became hooked on prescription drugs then added illegal drugs to the mix. He became obese, nasty, and along with drugs, became addicted to Internet pornography. His teenage daughters left home. His wife joined him in his drug habit. They lost their house and moved in with his brother in another state. His wife died in her late 40s. That is the last I heard of him. You could say that his pain was contagious.

In addition to all of that, the pain sufferer also becomes locked into the disability financially after getting onto Social Security or some othe disability plan. I remember one patient who was thrilled after I was able to help her out of pain for the first time in years. I was also very excited. Then, it dawned on her that getting better would mean the end of disability payments. Her financial survival depended on those payments.  Herdisability, in effect, had become her profession. That was the last time I saw her.

The moral these and many other stories is that pain is not to be taken lightly. If you have a pain, even a relatively mild one, that lasts for more than a few days, get it checked out by a professional. If it is pain in the chest or abdomen or an organ go to your medical doctor. If it is joint pain anywhere in the body, see a chiropractor. He or she will get to the cause of the pain and correct it or refer you to a medical specialist. Unless and until it becomes Chronic Pain Syndrome pain is not a problem, it is a signal that something is wrong. Correcting the real problem will not only relieve the pain, it will prevent further damage to your body.

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