what a pain

We all get occasional aches and pains, but for nearly 10 million people in the UK pain is a key part of their life every day. Not surprisingly, experiencing pain on this basis has a major impact on their quality of life, affecting their ability to work, socialise and live normally.

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Pain can be caused by specific conditions, such as back problems, migraines, arthritis, disability, cancer, fibromyalgia or gynaecological conditions, such as endometriosis. Or it can occur as a result of accidents, injuries or after having surgery. But sometimes people also get pain that's unexplained with no easy to find cause. Pain is a personal and subjective experience and it's caused by an emotion experienced in the brain. It's often difficult to put the experience into words, but it is essential to explain it as best as possible to a doctor in order to get a diagnosis. Due to the subjective nature of pain, it's also hard to know exactly how someone else feels, unless we've been through a similar thing ourselves.

The experience of pain can be one-off and temporary, so that it soon eases and goes away, or it can last for several weeks or months. 'Acute pain is short-term pain that lasts 12 weeks or less. Chronic pain is where someone experiences continuous long-term pain for 12 weeks or more,' say the British Pain Society.

It's this long-term pain that can be extremely difficult to deal with and it can take its toll both physically and psychologically. What's more, both those suffering from the pain and friends and family can be affected, the latter as they often feel unable to do anything to help. It's common for people with pain to have disturbed sleep, feel anxious, depressed and frustrated by the situation, and find their work, social life and marriage are affected by it.

Sadly, dealing with pain isn't always straightforward. Medication, such as prescribed or over-the-counter painkillers is a common treatment, but doesn't always offer a long-term solution. Those with long-term pain are often desperate for relief and will give anything a go. Alternatives to painkillers include complementary therapies, such as acupuncture, which may provide some degree of relief. TENS machines – Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation – are small devices that work by emitting pulses of electricity. Little pads are placed on your body with wires that plug into the TENS and the electrical pulses help relieve pain.

Learning to manage pain can be really difficult to do, especially if there's limited help and support available. Specialist pain clinics, run by the NHS, can assist with this, but demand means there are often waiting lists. Pain management sessions use a range of practical strategies and psychological techniques to help reduce people's distress and improve their physical function and quality of life.

But some of these skills can be self-applied, if you're willing to have a go. 'We recommend techniques such as learning to relax, improving sleep and gentle exercise,' explained a spokesperson for the South Derbyshire Pain Management Service. 'Chronic pain sufferers are taught pacing techniques and encouraged to set goals to achieve'.

Exercise may seem like a strange activity to promote for someone in pain, but studies have found it's of benefit. Inactivity isn't good for us and can cause loss of strength and muscle tone, plus it can reduce stress and anxiety, so simple exercise, like walking or swimming, can help. Exercise also helps reduce pain in another way too. When you exercise, the body produces 'feel good' endorphins and these can block pain signals from reaching the brain. So, in a sense, it works as a form of natural pain relief.

Learning to relax and switching off from worrying about your pain is another recommended approach, although it's not always easy. Specially designed CDs can guide people through relaxation techniques and are a useful aid to reducing anxiety and stress, and learning to manage pain.

children's pain

But suffering from pain isn't just a problem for adults – many children are affected, too. Statistics suggest 15% of children and adolescents regularly suffer from headaches, abdominal and musculoskeletal pain. For 2%, the pain is so severe that it interrupts their normal activities, affecting their sleep, preventing them from attending school and restricting day-to-day physical activity.

'Many people used to think chronic pain was a uniquely adult problem,' says Professor Christopher Eccleston, Director of the Pain Management Unit at the University of Bath and Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases. 'But almost half a million children report severe or recurrent pain. They also experience high levels of distress, have more mental health and social problems and tend to do worse academically than children without pain.'

As well as affecting their life, the pain experienced by children also impacts on their family, causing distress and worry to parents. 'A child's family can be significantly affected,' says Professor Eccleston. 'Our studies have shown many parents of children who suffer with chronic pain report higher than normal levels of anxiety. They're distressed by their inability to alleviate their child's pain and feel it contradicts their view of a parent as someone who can 'make things better'.

Often the medication used for adults isn't always as effective for children. Research by the Bath-based Pain Management Unit has found that, even for those with chronic pain, psychologically-based treatments can be successful for reducing the impact pain has on their lives. They've developed a residential programme designed especially for adolescents and their parents. It works in a similar way to pain management sessions for adults and involves learning all sorts of useful skills, such as improving fitness, dealing with fears, increasing awareness of oneself, dealing with social situations and coping with anxiety. Most importantly, they participate in age appropriate activities that they may have previously been missing due to their pain. 'Doing the things they enjoy reduces the impact pain has on their life and helps parents too,' says Professor Eccleston.

It's no fun suffering from pain, or seeing someone else suffer. But by learning new ways to deal with it, it's possible to manage it more effectively and stop pain ruining your life.

Take a look at some other related articles from Channel 4:

Find out how complementary medicine may be able to help with back pain and migraine
Controlling the pain of cancer and heart disease
Frequently asked questions about pain
The care for people who are terminally ill.

(June 2007)

Read on for details of relevant organisations, websites and reading.