Summary: Study explores the role the reward system plays in chronic pain, finding emotional and physical pain are bidirectional. Opioids, researchers report, ultimately make things worse.
Source: University of Washington
A broken heart is often harder to heal than a broken leg. Now researchers say that a broken heart can contribute to lasting chronic pain.
In a reflections column published Dec. 21 in the Annals of Family Medicine, pain experts Mark Sullivan and Jane Ballantyne at the University of Washington School of Medicine, say emotional pain and chronic physical pain are bidirectional. Painkillers, they said, ultimately make things worse.
Their argument is based on new epidemiological and neuroscientific evidence, which suggests emotional pain activates many of the same limbic brain centers as physical pain. This is especially true, they said, for the most common chronic pain syndromes – back pain, headaches, and fibromyalgia.
Opioids may make patients feel better early on, but over the long term these drugs cause all kinds of havoc on their well-being, the researchers said.
“Their social and emotional functioning is messed up under a wet blanket of opioids,” Sullivan said.
The researchers said new evidence suggests that the body’s reward system may be more important than tissue damage in the transition from acute to chronic pain.
By reward system, they are referring, in part, to the endogenous opioid system, a complicated system connected to several areas of the brain, The system includes the natural release of endorphins from pleasurable activities.
When this reward system is damaged by manufactured opioids, it perpetuates isolation and chronic illness and is a strong risk factor for depression, they said.
“Rather than helping the pain for which the opioid was originally sought, persistent opioid use may be chasing the pain in a circular manner, diminishing natural rewards from normal sources of pleasure, and increasing social isolation,” they wrote.
Both Sullivan and Ballantyne prescribe opioids for their patients and say they have a role in short-term use.
“Long-term opioid therapy that lasts months and perhaps years should be a rare occurrence because it does not treat chronic pain well, it impairs human social and emotional function, and can lead to opioid dependence or addiction,” they wrote.
What Sullivan recommends is if patients are on high-dose long-term opioids and they are not having clear improvement in pain and function, they need to taper down or switch to buprenorphine. If available, a multidisciplinary pain program using a case manager to monitor their care and well-being, similar to those for diabetes and depression care, may be of benefit.
About this pain research news
Source: University of Washington
Contact: Bobbi Nodell – University of Washington
Image: The image is in the public domain
Original Research: Closed access.
“When Physical and Social Pain Coexist: Insights Into Opioid Therapy” by Mark D. Sullivan and Jane C. Ballantyne. Annals of Family Medicine
When Physical and Social Pain Coexist: Insights Into Opioid Therapy
The US opioid epidemic challenges us to rethink our understanding of the function of opioids and the nature of chronic pain. We have neatly separated opioid use and abuse as well as physical and social pain in ways that may not be consistent with the most recent neuroscientific and epidemiological research. Physical injury and social rejection activate similar brain centers. Many of the patients who use opioid medications long term for the treatment of chronic pain have both physical and social pain, but these medications may produce a state of persistent opioid dependence that suppresses the endogenous opioid system that is essential for human socialization and reward processing. Recognition of the social aspects of chronic pain and opioid action can improve our treatment of chronic pain and our use of opioid medications.