You are not supposed to live with constant pain.

This is how you handle it

Pain is a very complex thing - one that is hard to measure, hard to explain, and yet can disrupt every aspect of life.

But unlike what was once thought, you are not supposed to "get over it" and live alongside the pain, and yes - there is something to do

Iris Cole

05/08/2022

Friday, August 5, 2022, 10:00 a.m. Updated: 10:16 a.m.

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Dr. Uri Hochberg explains what pain actually is - and how to treat it (Walla system)

Pain is a much more complex thing than it seems to most of us, and anyone who suffers from constant pain knows that it is a very heavy burden that disrupts life.

Dr. Uri Hochberg, director of oncology pain, the Institute for the Treatment of Chronic and Acute Pain in Ichilov, was a guest on the "Expert Clinic" podcast to explain what pain actually is - and how it is treated.

So what is pain? "The accepted definition of pain is a sensory experience, or an emotional experience, Unpleasant, which are related to damage to a tissue, part of the body, or future damage," said Dr. Hochberg, explaining that when you experience pain many times there is also a degree of insult, because the damage is not only physical but also to myself.

"In the end, the pain is felt in the head."

But there is even a more precise definition: "Pain is what a patient says," explained Dr. Hachoberg, "everything the patient says hurts him.

My responsibility as a doctor is to understand what he means.

Not every patient knows how to put into words what he experiences, what he wants, what he thinks was taken from him, and many times it comes out as 'it hurts.'"

And if all these definitions are not complex enough, Dr. Hochberg explains that sometimes There is pain that has its origin in one place but is experienced in another place, and even phantom pains - pains in organs that no longer exist.

There are also "people with very serious injuries who will not necessarily experience pain, and on the other hand, healthy people or those without visible damage, who report very significant pain and difficulty in all aspects of functioning," he explained.

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And of course there is also the social component.

"One woman giving birth can give birth in a field and roar to the sky, which is acceptable and reasonable, and another woman giving birth in a London hospital in the 19th century will give birth in complete silence, because there is also an element of social norms and conventions and expectation," he explained.

Even today, in 2022, there is no device that can measure pain, apart from clear questions from the therapist - how do you feel, or how much does it hurt you on a scale of 1 to 10. But these are not the only questions that are important when talking to a person in pain.

"Questions that are important are whether you feel that your function has been damaged, whether the marital or family system has stalled a bit, whether there is a new difficulty in the workplace because of the experience you are telling about," said Dr. Hochberg.

What do we do with all this pain?

"When approaching pain, it's important for us to know what we're dealing with, what we're trying to achieve, the control we're trying to achieve depends on the source," explained Dr. Hocherbag, "If there's a fracture in the leg or a burn, the emphasis should be medicinal, sometimes also invasive. Sometimes the emotional aspect has a component Significant - here too there is something to offer, such as mindfulness and various relaxation techniques."

Significant pain also destabilizes us emotionally.

And this also needs to be taken care of.

A woman in anxiety (Photo: ShutterStock)

The beginning of all chronic pain is acute pain, and the doctor's job, the primary one, is to understand if there is a "red flag", a medical condition that may cause significant damage, and then begin treatment.

Many times on top of the physical difficulty there is also an emotional difficulty - "anxiety, and depression and emotional difficulties".

The pain clinic is attended by young and old alike, who are dealing with pain.

"We are often referred by a family doctor," he said, adding that their goal is to catch the patients before the pain becomes chronic and affects many aspects of life.

"But most of the patients come to us from the family doctor or the orthopedist after they have gone some long way and have not found a solution to their pain," he added.

"In recent years, a great effort has been made in the medical world to raise awareness of pain treatment, to such an extent that it is also acceptable to refer to the complaint of pain numerically (scale of 1 to 10) as an essential index like pulse or blood pressure," said Dr. Hochberg, yet - Pain is something that is difficult to measure, and our world likes patterns, so it is difficult to deal with it. Fortunately, even in the case of pain that is the result of an injury or damage, and even if it is pain that is the result of cancer, pain clinics know how to find solutions - from invasive intervention through training in lifestyle changes Life and up to emotional support. "There is a lot to do with pain," he concluded.

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• Pain

• back pain