424-429. Chronic Pain

Question 1

Give a definition of pain

Answer 1

An unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage

(What the patient says it is)

Question 2

List the negative effects that pain can have on the body

Answer 2

Negative psychological responses - anxiety, depression, sleep deprivation

Cardiac problems - increase BP, increase HR, increase risk of IHD, angina etc

Respiratory problems - inhibits cough, hyperventilation

GIT problems - nausea, vomiting, ileus

Metabolic problems - Increase in catabolic processes (cortisone, glucagon, GH, catecholamines), decrease in anabolic proesses (insulin, testosterone), increase plasminogen (Increases coagulation)

Genitourinary problems - urinary retention, uterine inhibition

Question 3

Define allodynia

Answer 3

Pain from a stimulus not normally painful

Question 4

Define hyperalgesia

Answer 4

Abnormally high levels of pain from noxious stimuli