Q1. How do you define chronic pain and the relationship it has to our mental health?
Chronic pain is any bodily pain that is ongoing for a period of more than six months. Chronic pain can affect anyone and may occur because of injury, nerve irritation/damage, inflammation caused by an inappropriate response by the body's immune system, or even without a particular origin. Chronic pain can continue long after the original injury or illness has healed.
Pain acts as an important signal for the brain, and so it’s relationship to mental health is quite deep and complex. Essentially, when we are in pain our brains kick off a series of amazing physical and chemical reactions all throughout the body. These changes occur to get us to away from the source of pain as quickly as possible, also known as the ‘fight or flight’ response. Most of the time, bodies resolve these changes and return to normal quite quickly--like stubbing your toe or hitting your funny bone. But with chronic pain, the physical and chemical changes continue because the pain signals do not switch back off. This puts a huge amount of stress on the body & creates a cycle of inflammation that can be incredibly difficult to interrupt and/or break. You can read more about the cycle of chronic pain and how it may present here: https://www.curablehealth.com/infographic/path-out-of-chronic-pain-2?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIja7tv6Wk9gIVx...
Chronic pain is so much more than an inconvenience. It often destabilises many areas of life including relationships, capacity to work, general wellbeing. As we know, these factors all contribute to mental health. Because the body’s pain signals are always switched on, sleep and eating patterns can also be affected due to constant stress within the body. Chronic pain often makes socialising very difficult because no two days look the same. This can lead to intense feelings of isolation & loneliness as we must often choose between seeing loved ones or prioritising our health while also grieving the loss of having bodies that may not be able to do things we used to love to do.
