Blog About Health & Medicine

We have seen that if we really understand the basic cause of our pain, we do something to reduce our anxiety and so lessen the pain. Further, if the cause of our anxiety lies in some conflict that we are aware of, then we can reduce our anxiety and pain by facing up to the problem realistically. However, as we now know there is another way to reduce our anxiety, and that is by learning how to be more relaxed. We do this by means of our relaxing mental exercises. While we are practising them we are more relaxed. Some of this relaxation stays with us afterward. Then with continued practice we find it pervading our everyday life. There is less anxiety in us to motivate functional pain, and we find that it gradually disappears.

Increasing Our Threshold of Pain-If we gently pinch our skin, we feel it but it does not hurt us. If we pinch it harder we come to the stage when it does hurt. This is our threshold of pain in these particular circumstances. We can see that our threshold of pain is quite a variable affair. If we get someone else to pinch us, and at the same time if we ourselves consciously relax, he is able to pinch much harder before we feel pain. In a similar way if he distracts our attention as he pinches us, we do not feel the pain of it so readily. But if our friend makes rather a show of what he is going to do, pain comes more readily because he has mobilized our anxiety, and this lowers our pain threshold.

Our relaxing mental exercises are used to increase our pain threshold in two ways. In the first place the reduction of our general level of anxiety makes us less sensitive to pain, and in the second place we can use our relaxing mental exercises in a positive way to condition ourselves against being disturbed by painful stimuli. It is important to remember that this approach is effective with pain which is due to either functional or organic causes.

*124\57\2*

Q. I imagine bowel obstruction means what it says — there is a blockage along the intestinal system.

A. True, and this may be serious. It often presents as a surgical emergency and often prompt surgery is life saving. It may occur anywhere along the bowel but probably the most common site is the large bowel.

In older people, a sinister and serious cause is an obstruction caused by a cancer. Sometimes a loop of bowel may be blocked by bands and adhesions from previous surgery or inflammation. A loop of bowel being caught in a hernia in the groin is a common cause. Generally this will show up as an obvious tender swelling making diagnosis easier.

In children and infants, obstruction may occur if the bowel telescopes in itself, a condition called intussusception, or it may twist, causing a volvulus. Ulcers near the pylorus of the stomach may contract as they heal, causing scarring and narrowing of the canal, also blocking the free flow of food. An obstruction may occur suddenly, causing abdominal pain, followed by vomiting. After a time, this may become faecal. Babies are sometimes born with a very narrow pyloric canal called pyloric stenosis.

Q. What is the treatment?

A. Treatment is invariably surgical and often as an emergency measure. The source of the blockage must be found and relieved. In older people, if a cancer is found, the surgery may be extensive for the effects of the obstruction plus the cancer must be dealt with at the same time. The risks are high.

*28\61\2*

Not all hospitals have these special clinics that usually include teams of doctors, psychologists, nurses, physiotherapists, occupational therapists and others who together run ‘pain management programmes’ that aim to teach patients about pain, how best to cope with it and how to live a more active life. Acupuncture and other complementary therapies may be available through some of these clinics. Explaining the role of pain clinics, The Pain Society stated: “Pain management helps sufferers come to terms with what has happened to their lives and to accept that they may not find a magic answer to cure their pain. Unfortunately, there are times when no treatment for chronic pain works as well as we would like. The pain sufferer is then left with a difficult problem of continuing pain, and all the negative effects the pain can have on every part of life, including work, marriage, social life, mobility, mood and sleep. The ‘ripples’ of pain are not the same as the pain itself, but often go with it and make the whole experience much more difficult to cope with, both for the pain sufferer and for those close to them.”

*27\124\2*