Ouch! The knife has slipped, your index finger is notched. The sharp pain that accompanies this incident quickly evaporates. “We speak of chronic pain when the pain lasts more than three months despite the treatments”, explains Prof. Alain Serrie, head of the pain medicine department, at the Lariboisière hospital (Paris) and coordinator of the book Pain medicine for the practitioner (ed. Elsevier-Masson).
Pain affects 1 in 3 people
In France, this chronic pain plagues the life of one in three adults. Whether it comes from recurring migraines, persistent low back pain, postoperative pain, inflammatory rheumatism or many other causes, this companion is always undesirable.
Dazzling, episodic or continuous, unpleasant, disturbing, overwhelming or unbearable, the pain is multiple. It is said “inflammatory“when it is caused by tissue damage, following infection or joint pain (such as rheumatoid arthritis). It is said”neuropathic“when the nervous system – nerves, brain, spinal cord – is damaged (for example, after surgery, due to shingles or multiple sclerosis).
In some cases, such as fibromyalgia, no lesion, neither inflammatory nor neurological, is identified: we then speak of pain “dysfunctional “.
Medication is not automatic
It has long been considered inevitable. It was necessary to “do with”. But today, pain is finally taken seriously by the medical world. To calm her down, paracetamol, aspirin, morphine, even antidepressants and antiepileptics: the medicine cabinet is full.
But while drugs are often essential, they sometimes fail to fulfill their purpose. Not to mention their side effects, even more in the long term. “In pain centers, we see failed patients. They tried a lot of different things, nothing worked,” notes Professor Serrie.
“After checking what they are taking, when … we offer them new leads.” Beyond drugs, gentle methods have proven their effectiveness. “They sometimes allow you to take fewer tablets, and therefore have fewer side effects.”
Above all, they often offer patients in distress a quality of life they no longer expected. Zoom in on gentle methods to treat pain in this slideshow.
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