Chronic Pain - Treatment and Psychological Effects

It is generally accepted that pain persisting beyond this healing period can be considered pathological:

The effects of chronic pain in an individual are numerous, including:

The categorization of pain by physiopathological pathway divides it in:

A 46 year old female had a rear-end MVA, after a week she described having 8/10 lancinating, shooting, electrical-like lower back pain. She says that sometimes it gets exacerbated unexpectedly. An MRI of the lumbar spine showed a disc bulge at L3-L4, with moderate nerve-root compression. The client’s pain is characteristic of:

The following treatment is used for nociceptive pain:

This category of pain is maladaptive (it does not provide any evolutionary advantages), involves changes in the nociceptive processing, with central sensitization, and chronic immune system activation. Psychological distress affects most individuals:

Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS), Fibromyalgia, and Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) are examples of this category of pain:

Opioid Pharmacological Treatment is no longer considered first line treatment for any form of chronic pain

Nonsteroid anti-inflammatories (NSAIDs), muscle relaxants, and nerve growth factor inhibitors are mostly used for pain relief in this category:

Pain can be inferred exclusively from the sensory neurons activity.

Common indications of surgical treatment for pain include: