The experience of being in a state of uncontrolled pain is horrible, frightening, and a medical emergency. However, to those not experiencing it, including health care professionals, extreme pain is often not considered important enough to require immediate action. After all, pain is not going to kill you. Or is it?
Unrelieved pain has consequences
It turns out that healing is actually delayed when pain caused by tissue damage is not relieved. A number of studies suggest that uncontrolled pain has an adverse effect on our immune system. Continuous pain also appears to lower our body's ability to respond to stressful situations such as surgery, chemotherapy, and psychological stress.
Far-reaching consequences can also result from pain due to damage to a nerve (neuropathic pain). This type of unrelieved pain seems to cause changes in the nervous system that contribute to the development of chronic pain long after the damage to the nerve has healed.
A very interesting study linking pain relief and prolongation of life was done by a surgeon who operated on patients with pancreatic cancer. In half the patients that he operated on, he injected alcohol into the nerve that transmits pain signals from the pancreas to the brain. This destroyed the nerve and reduced the pain caused by the pancreatic cancer. In the second group of patients he injected a simple salt solution into the nerve, which does not harm it, allowing the pain signals to continue. Interestingly, the patients who had the nerve destroyed not only had lower pain scores, but also lived much longer than the patients who still suffered uncontrolled pain through their intact nerve.
Although this was a small study, hopefully larger studies will be done to investigate the effect of pain control on length of survival. Certainly, we already know that controlling pain helps to provide enjoyment and peace to those who are living with a life-threatening illness.
Establishing trust with your health care team
Before discussing the details of pain control, it is important to understand that having trust in your health care team is essential for good pain management. To establish this trust, you need those around you, especially your health care team, to believe that your pain is what you say it is, not what they think it is. This is the key that will allow you and your health care team to work together to help you deal with the pain.
Also, it is very helpful to get an explanation for the pain - what is causing it, and why it is occurring. The unknown pain always hurts more than the known pain. Indeed, knowing the source of the pain is one of the first steps in being able to control it.
Being able to talk about the pain will also help you to cope better: how it affects you, and how you feel about what is causing it. As well, it is crucial to be able to discuss other issues in your life, either with people around you or a member of your health care team. If you are worried about relationships, spiritual issues, your future health, finances or other issues, your pain will be magnified.