Does Pain Wear Out Your Brain?
If you sit in your driveway and rev up your car a lot, you put a lot of wear and tear on certain parts of your car. Those parts are apt to wear out long before other parts, right? It's pretty simple logic.
Now apply that logic to your brain. When you have fibromyalgia (FMS), chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS or ME/CFS) or other types of chronic pain, all those pain signals keep certain parts of your brain revved up all the time. So does that mean we're wearing out our brains?
It appears so, according to research published in the Feb. 6 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. And they say that could be why we have to deal with things like short-term memory problems, decision making, irritability, mood swings, depression, etc.
Researchers used functional MRI to compare the brains of pain-free people (lucky souls!) with chronic-pain patients as they watched a moving bar on a computer screen. The scans showed that in healthy people, brain activity is balanced. Essentially, when you use one area, the other areas kind of take a back seat. But in people with chronic pain, one area - which is mostly associated with emotion - just never quiets down. That, researchers say, wears out your neurons and alters the way they communicate with each other - or it could even kill the neurons.
This is the first time we've seen a difference in brain activity between us and them that wasn't directly related to how we feel pain. The researchers say this shows that it's essential to study new approaches to pain treatment that not only control pain, but also prevent pain's effects on your brain.
Does this make sense to you? Does it give you hope that we could someday have a better treatment - even prevention - for our cognitive symptoms? Did you have chronic pain before you developed FMS or ME/CFS? Post a comment here or join the discussion in About.com's Fibromyalgia & ME/CFS forum.
- Read the abstract on this study.
- Get more research news.
Comments
This makes sense to me. At times my brain just feels tired. Its as though I can’t even attempt to think through anything that takes high levels of brain power, its just not going to happen when I feel this way. It a big part of why I had to quit working.
Maybe this is why so many doctors tell us “It’s all in your head!” I find this research remarkable. Those having fibro know full well how it effects our cognitive abilities, emotions and well-being. It’s reassuring to have proof that we aren’t making this stuff up.
While I didn’t always have the chronic pain before fibro., I did have pain at times and many of it’s other symptoms…the first noticable one being balance problems.
Your brain is part of your body, not separate, i.e. on another planet. This makes complete sense. FYI, I have a friend who is in severe, chronic pain. This effects his communication, thus attitude, thus receptive language ability, which is greatly impacting the medical care he receiving, or not.
Fascinating stuff. Thanks for the blog. Personally I believe there is an anxiety component to CFS/FM; the brain seems to be too active - unable to settle down. Plus there’s all the emotional turmoil in these diseases. It makes perfect sense to me.
This makes sense to me, too. I have had strong fibromyalgia symptons since I was a child but wasn’t properly diagnosed until I was about 50 yrs. old. I had a goiter when I was 19 and put on thyroid hormone for hypothyroidism Every mornng was a nightmare, so I hated to go to bed at night since I knew I would be horribly stiff and stunned after trying to wake up to my three alarm clocks. Mood disorders have haunted me all my life and my peers used to tease me about it, making life unhappy quite a lot. I wish I could have some of those tests done that they use in research to find out if my brain has those anomalies. Even though I have all kinds of confirmed diagnoses now for sleep disorders, fibromyalgia, chronic pain, apparent bi-polar 2, thyroid nodules and disfigurement, etc. etc. I still don’t feel exonderated that it is not my fault when can’t control my crying and constant aches and pains and joint subluxations. I really hope for the many people that are branded as hypochondriacs that more breakthroughs will be forthcoming soon.
I was diagnosed supposedly– starting 20 years ago–It’s been proven in many strange coincidences that I was chosen since birth–54 years ago–to be afflicted with domino effect symptons that led to a medical diagnosis in 1988–after a severe bout of Epstein Barr/CMV–I BELIEVE IT MIGHT BE Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
Through the years to follow “IT” was diagnosed as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome–Myofascial Pain Syndrome–Fibromyalgia–”IT”S ALL IN YOUR HEAD”…Since 2000 “MS or Parkinson’s”– Antibody Immune Disorder–Attrial Fibrillation–Inoperable Pituitary Tumor–Metabolism Shutdown.
I was never given pain medicine until 2 Years Ago and I’m really VERY concerned that my pain meds will no longer be available every time I go to the doctor for a new prescription-because of all of the misguided and misleading statements that are made every day by the “Media and Medical Experts”.
I believe that these “SYMPTONS” were very successfully covered up by the Medical Experts(Physicians–Chronic Disease Control-aka United States Government)for many years starting to really grow seeds in the(1940’s-1950″s)and starting to flower in the(1960’s-1980’s)
and completely taking over in the(1990’s-2000’s)–I can only hope my great-grandchildren–don’t have to go live there life with this monster.
The Pain Brain connection you decsribe makes perfect sense to me. I first had short spells of unexplained fatigue in my teens, then unexplained viral symptoms in my 20’s, usually resolving after 2 weeks, then unexplained spells of short term depression with mild anxiety, followed by balance/walking problems, followed by exercise intolerance in my late 40’s, finally leading to pain, severe pain and then cognitive problems including short term memory issues. The brain is very adaptable so I hold out hope that mine could re-adapt given proper treatment (as of yet undiscovered). Certainly permanent damage may be the case, especially as one ages). Some things cannot be undone. On occasion I still experience completely normal functioning, but what I notice is the inability to unwind, or wind down at the end of the day and I don’t get proper sleep.
This is scary, however, I really think they are on to something with this. I really hope they get it all figured out soon so maybe they can start to treat it or something.
I have “short-term memory problems, decision making [problems], irritability, mood swings, depression, etc.” and much more. It certainly seems to me that my brain is wearing out.
With this kind of research available now, maybe they will actually give us some pain medication that WORKS. I am so tired of suffering because others have messed things up for us by abusing prescription pain meds. We need these things, especially if the pain is doing damage to the way our brains work!
I plan on discussing different pain treatments with my doctor next week.
Very interesting article. Thank you for sharing it with us. =)
This research might explain why I’m so tired and cog-fogged AFTER a flare-up. Since getting fibro, I’ve come to realize that being in pain takes energy, so why shouldn’t it also be tiring for the brain?
I have seasonal affective disorder, which the doctor who diagnosed me said he feels is somehow related to fibromyalgia.
Oftentimes, it’s not that I feel depressed. I just feel too tired to react. I feel “emotionally flat-lined” as I call it. Being happy takes effort, being sad takes effort. I’m somewhere in-between.
Now that I’m receiving treatment for fibromyalgia and sleep (thankfully!), I don’t think I’ve had that flat-lined emotion as much. I’m not at extremes, either. I feel good or I feel bad.
I’m taking 25-50mg of Trazodone to help me sleep at night. I think the dosage for treatment of depression is more like 100-300mg, so I think it’s more about having gotten better sleep than the fact that I’m on any kind of anti-depressant.
I’ve had fibro for 20+ yrs. I should have been diagnosed w/depression when I was 13, but didn’t get meds until late 40’s, even though I asked for them many times. I recently changed from Effexor to Cymbalta, and Cymbalta is FDA approved for fibro, I believe. Lyrica also helps but has some nasty side-effects. In my case, “brain fog” is depression. Hell, the whole thing is probably a variant of depression. Swimming in warm water is so important to me I moved to AZ to be able to do it. Sun/warmth also critical.