I read them so you don't have to. Here is a very interesting article from today's Wall Street Journal on PAIN. something all of us are all too familiar with.
Rewiring the Brain for Pain Relief
It's NCCAM sponsored . Here's some excerpts
[quote]"There is a growing recognition that drugs are only part of the solution and that people who live with chronic pain have to develop a strategy that calls upon some inner resources," says Josephine Briggs, director of NCCAM, which has funded much of the research into alternative approaches to pain relief
....That doesn't mean that the pain is imaginary, experts stress. In fact, brain scans show that chronic pain (defined as pain that lasts at least 12 weeks or a long time after the injury has healed) represents a malfunction in the brain's pain processing systems. The pain signals take detours into areas of the brain involved with emotion, attention and perception of danger and can cause gray matter to atrophy. That may explain why some chronic pain sufferers lose some cognitive ability, which is often thought to be a side effect of pain medication. [/quote]
Keep the Faith
Charm

Great read Charm, thanks.

This was actually the solution I went for to deal with chronic pain and steer away from drugs and free myself from the side effects.

I'd read an article from the Mayo Clinic about biofeedback while researching nerve pain (I suffer from facial neuropathy due to a compromised nerve) and was looking for treatment options. With biofeedback you actually monitor heart rate and other indicators that tell when your body is in distress and focus on techniques that will help cope with the pain. The feedback monitors show you when your indicators are going down so you can focus on what technique is working.

It really is about learning how to mentally get past the pain, while not "ignoring" it, just focusing on something different. I've talked about this subtley in my blog, usually referring to it as "getting my head wrapped around it" and sometimes it's very successful and sometimes it is not. I still have to resort to other means of pain management now and again, usually when I'm too tired to concentrate.

What they did touch on in the article yet didn't expand on was the relationship between depression and chronic pain, which is an interesting subject and as described in the article, a viscious circle.

A side effect of opiate pain meds is depression, depression enhances pain, antidepressants can help pain yet both opiates and antidepressants lower testosterone in the body and the link between low testosterone and depression is long standing...yet not covered much in med school.

For myself finding means to deal with chronic fatigue and pain without drugs was a way to stabilize myself mentally and emotionally and then address the underlying cause of the pain if possible. I'm an advocate of using whatever means possible to address cancer related pain, yet have a very intimate understanding of how the side effects from these drugs drastically affect an individuals mental and emotional outlook and personal relationships. Personally I don't think enough respect is given for these pain meds and is reflected in the fact that Vicodin is the most prescribed medicine in the US according to the article.

Great read and interesting topic my friend, thank you!

Eric