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Chronic Pain Conference Says, "Forget Your Aches"
Treede points out that most patients have trouble remembering and describing acute pain symptoms from the past. When asked to recall the specifics of a chronic pain attack. However, they can recall the exact circumstances of the painful incident or their surroundings when the chronic pain syndrome began to plague them.
Using Memory for Chronic Pain Management
Injuries and sudden acute pain attacks give the body a number of alarm signals. These incidents are taken in by the memory as a way of protecting the body. The nervous system becomes sensitized to this chronic pain memory which, in effect, locks them in place. In other words the body learns the pain and holds on to it as a form of knowledge. This mind and body connection is a basic system found in all animals?including humans.
Learning from Experience
The evolutionary advantage - or, in plain English, the benefit - of this acute pain learning mechanism is to steer the body away from situations that will cause pain. In the case of chronic pain, the mechanism has gone too far and holds the pain memory without any relief.
Some of the means being described at the Sydney pain conference include hypnosis, psycho-pharmacological medications, and counseling. These approaches, used separately or in tandem, are proving extremely effective in both immediate pain relief and long term chronic pain management.
