Alternative treatment options

The majority of treatments for the suppression of pain mentioned on this website evolve around the principle of pharmacologically inhibiting the processes of nociception. However, pain is a compound experience and does not only involve the physical pereception of pain, but also affective (emotional) aspects. This is the reason why pain of equivalent intensity (in terms of nociception/ number of pain afferents activated) may be “felt” as stronger/ weaker relative to the situation. Being bashed hard in the chest may activate an equivalent nociceptive response as having a heart attack, but the heart attack may well appear to be more painful because of the emotions and fear involved.

Meditation

It is plausible that while our efforts have been focused around the basic suppression of the nociceptive response, analgesia may well be possible simply by the working of the mind. This idea is supported by the fact that transcendental meditation, a task involved in focusing the mind/learning to ignore certain feelings, can reduce or even eliminate the sensation of pain. It is debatable whether such practices actually reduce the nociceptive sensation, or whether they act by generating an indifference to pain- in the latter case, nociception would work as normal, and be felt as normal, but the emotional response to the pain would be null.

Studies into this area have provided mixed results: Astin et al compared a meditation-group to a control-group in a randomised-control trial and found no significant difference in pain reduction/ emotional changes between the two. Conversely, Kaplan et al found that, of 59 fibromyalgia patients treated with meditation, 30 showed a 25% improvement on at least half of all measures of pain. The only problem with Kaplan’s study, as with many other alternative medicine studies, is that there was no control! On the other hand, a non-randomised control test performed by Bruckstein, which compared changes in pain/ emotional response with meditation, cognitive behavioural therapy (common psychotherapy technique) and a control group, showed that meditation was the most effective method of improving people’s response to pain. It would seem that, at least in some people, meditation helps them cope with the symptoms of pain, and makes them somewhat indifferent, even if it doesn’t actually remove the nociceptive element.

 Even lemurs are aware of the positive benefits of meditation!


image source: https://flickr.com/photos/somerslea/226999558/ 

Other supplementary treatments

Chinese medicine has also put forward various treatment for pain, one of which being acupuncture. Although research into this area is limited, one key study by Berman et al showed that osteoarthritis patients given true acupuncture alongside normal treatment improved better, and reported less pain, than patients given fake acupuncture.

Massage is another alternative treatment for pain that is particularly useful for the treatment of muscular pain and trapped nerves. The principle is that compressing the muscle straightens out any misaligned fibres and releases any build-ups of lactic acid in these knotted fibres. The benefits of massage were seen in a randomised-control trial by Plews-Ogan et al, where significant reductions in musculoskeletal pain were seen over time.

(see references page for journal references cited)