Chronic Pain Article on io9

[Ftaghn!]

"People who suffer from chronic pain often feel like the experience dominates their lives, and changes them profoundly. Now, a group of pain researchers and geneticists have discovered that this feeling isn't far from scientific truth. Being in chronic pain changes the way your brain functions on a physical level. The good news is that you can also change it back."

On a research paper from McGill University. Looking good!

http://io9.com/breakthrough-research-suggests-simple-ways-to-reverse-c-461114877

 

[BruceMC]

One group was subjected to "impoverishment," which meant a very small cage where they lived alone. Another group enjoyed 'enrichment,' which meant they had a roomy cage with other mouse friends, as well as marbles to play with.

Social isolation, according to Prof Robert Sapolsky, in his baboon studies in Kenya, doesn't just intensify chronic pain, but results in earlier cases of dementia and shortened overall lifespan. See his lecture in the Media section of this site:

http://tmswiki.org/forum/media/stre...individual-differences-by-robert-sapolsky.64/

Your place in the social hierarchy along with the anxiety that creates also seems to modify brain organization and operation as well. It certainly sounds as though all these aches and pains, headaches, and depression leads back to the social sciences, doesn't it? You can see how social isolation coupled with obsessive compulsive personality traits tends to reinforce programmed pain pathways in the central nervous systems of people with chronic pain symptoms. That must be why obsessing about your symptoms all the time only perpetuates them.