When Can Pain Be a Plus?

By Dr. Steven Warfield

Nobody likes pain, be it the pain of a stiff neck, a headache or your aching back.  So where’s the plus side of pain?  Pain in and of itself is just the body’s warning system trying to tell you that something is amiss, that you might be pushing your body beyond its limits.  In short it works like your home’s smoke alarm which tells you when a fire is imminent.  What you do about it and how fast you respond to these warnings can be the difference between an overdone pot roast to the fire department breaking down your door.

The same can be said of your body’s pain response.  Were we to feel no pain, our lives would literally be on the line 24/7.  In fact there is a medical condition known as CIPA (Congenital Insensitivity to Pain with Anhidrosis), that literally renders people with the condition unable to sense pain of any kind.  While this sounds like a gift to anyone who suffers from chronic pain, what you need to understand is that people born with the condition can do irreparable harm to their bodies without even knowing it. 

In a report by NBC News on an infant with CIPA: The doctor put drops in Ashlyn’s eye to stain any particles that might be irritating it. The infant smiled and bounced in her mother’s lap while the dye revealed a massive scratch across her cornea. “They put the dye in her eye and I remember the look of puzzlement on all their faces,” Ashlyn’s mother says. “Ashlyn was not fazed by it by any means.”

Once CIPA was confirmed, the problems became even more pronounced for her parents. “There were many things they couldn’t anticipate. Ashlyn’s baby teeth posed big problems. She would chew her lips bloody in her sleep, bite through her tongue while eating, and once even stuck a finger in her mouth and stripped flesh from it.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/6379795/ns/health-childrens_health/t/rare-disease-makes-girl-unable-feel-pain/

Far from being a blessing, CIPA can turn out to be a curse with a lifetime of injuries.  Those with CIPA can expect to collect their fair share of burns, strains, sprains and broken bones that if left untreated can lead to more serious conditions.  While CIPA sufferers can overcome pain, one thing that they are just as susceptible to as the rest of us is infection.   Because while CIPA covers up the pain, it doesn’t stop the complications that injury can bring.

  

The Pain Pill Cover Up

This is one of the reasons that I am often astounded at the ways in which the public has been taught to deal with pain.  Turn on any television and it won’t be long before you come across an advertisement touting one kind of “pain reliever” or another.  Some of these pain pills are available over the counter and some require a prescription.  But one thing is universal.  These pills do not “relieve” pain.  What they do is mask it.  And therein lays the rub.

Just as those with CIPA, by masking the pain, what we are doing in essence is removing the battery from the smoke detector instead of confronting the fire.  (Which is why it’s illegal to do so in most states.)  While I’m not suggesting that people should suffer in silence every ache and pain that comes along, what I am suggesting is that when you hurt, there is an underlying cause that needs to be diagnosed and treated.  This is the real way to eliminate pain, by putting out the fire. 

What most people do not consider is that in many cases simple aches and pains if treated promptly can mean quick and long lasting relief.  Masking the pain and ignoring it can lead to complications, infection and more radical treatment down the road.  And unlike those with CIPA, many analgesics are habit forming to those who use them and that can lead to even more complications. 

While nobody starts out trying to become addicted to prescription pain pills, it’s a habit that’s all too easy to start and all too hard to quit.  Statistics show that twenty percent of the population in the US reports abusing prescription drugs at least once in their lives. Just as with CIPA, it is possible that there is an inherited predilection toward addiction.

Andrew Saxon, MD professor of psychiatry at the University of Washington stated that, "It's clear that some people have a genetic predisposition to addiction. There's something different in their brains to begin with and prolonged drug abuse likely creates further chemical changes.” http://www.webmd.com/pain-management/features/prescription-drug-abuse-who-gets-addicted-and-why

With more powerful and longer lasting pain killers flooding the market, it’s the availability of these substances that produce the kind of pain that chiropractic treatment alone can’t cure.  While not everyone who uses analgesics will wind up sliding down the slippery slope to addiction, the best long term solution to pain is to heed the warning and seek medical treatment that can put out the fire and keep your house in good order.

Dr.’s Steven Warfield and Dave Edenfield offer the most advanced treatments for back pain, sciatica, neck pain, whiplash and headaches. They also treat auto accident victims with state-of-the-art technologies. If you or anyone you know suffers from herniated discs, degenerative discs or spinal stenosis, visit http://chiropractor-orange-park-fl.com/ & http://chiropractic-jacksonville-fl.com