How Chronic Pain Affects Your Life

Chronic pain is pain that doesn’t go away. It may vary in intensity, but it tends to stay around and becomes long-term pain. It can cause addiction to painkillers and other drugs. It’s effects on a person go beyond just the pain as it can affect a person’s decision-making abilities, the person getting involved in riskier ventures and even making unhealthy food choices. 

Chronic pain affects one in four adults and costs the US $635 billion in healthcare costs and lost

productivity each year. Surveys of professional athletes and members of the military are even worse. Among veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, over 80% suffer persistent pain caused by traumatic brain injuries. One cannot even imagine the long-term effects that the war in Ukraine will have on all the people involved.

Here's some of the research that’s been done on chronic pain.

One study looked at a person’s gambling decision-making. In the study, people without chronic pain tended to learn to stick with safer cards. The chronic pain people gambled larger sums and accrued greater debt. The researchers found that chronic pain sufferers were missing identifying subtle body changes like a racing heart, sweaty palms and churning stomachs that the non-suffers experienced and used to make a decision to play it safer.

The chronic pain suffers were less sensitive to these internal signals and made riskier decisions.

In a study published in the journal Pain, the researchers found that people experiencing lower back pain obtained less pleasure from eating high-fat foods. Those who suffered from backaches often continued to eat despite a lack of satisfaction and already feeling full. This   resulted in the person putting on weight.

 Another study found structural changes in the nucleus accumbens which is a brain region involved in motivation and reward. In rodents, they found that over-stimulating this brain region drove them to overeat even when they weren’t hunger. This absence of hunger resulted in a person becoming obese.

Chronic pain’s effects can even be seen in brain scans. People with persistent backaches had less grey matter in the prefrontal cortex, which is an area of the brain involved in pain perception, decision making and cognitive flexibility. 

One of the therapy’s that is being used to treat chronic pain is cognitive behavioral therapy. I’d suggest someone in chronic pain also explore acupuncture, physical therapy, meditation, tai chi and yoga.

So…the expression that it’s all in your mind needs to be expanded to include the brain and the body because chronic pain effects it all – it’s not just in your mind!
(Reported Discover Magazine, Chronic Pain Makes You Think Differently, March 28, 2022)