Whatever the treatment method, it is important to remember that pain is treatable. Here are some common pain treatments.

Treatment Options for Pain

Drugs: Examples are aspirin, acetaminophen, and NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, such as ibuprofen.) These pain relievers, also called analgesics, treat anything from minor aches to arthritis. Other drugs that are sometimes used for pain include anticonvulsants, antidepressants, antimigraine drugs, COX-2 inhibitors, and narcotics.

Chemical injections or applications: Examples include capsaicin, a chemical found in chili peppers used in pain-relieving creams; nerve blocks with drugs or chemicals to interrupt relay of pain messages between the brain and other parts of the body; and enzymes injected into lumbar disks.

Physical methods: Common treatments include physical therapy, biofeedback, acupuncture, electrical stimulation, R.I.C.E. (Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation, for muscle and bone conditions), and exercise to improve blood flow and oxygen to muscles and relieve stress.

Psychological methods: These include counseling, hypnosis, and cognitive-behavioral therapy—a treatment that involves a wide variety of coping skills and relaxation methods to help prepare for and cope with pain.

Surgery: Although not always an option, surgery may be required to relieve pain, especially pain caused by back problems or serious musculoskeletal injuries.

You know it at once. It may be the fiery sensation of a burn moments after your finger touches the stove. Or it’s a dull ache above your brow after a day of stress and tension. Or you may recognize it as a sharp pierce in your back after you lift something heavy. In its most benign form, pain warns us that something isn’t quite right, that we should take medicine, or see a doctor. At its worst, however, pain robs us of our productivity, our well being, and, ultimately, our very lives.

In 1931, the French medical missionary Dr. Albert Schweitzer wrote, “Pain is a more terrible lord of mankind than even death itself.” Today, pain has become the universal disorder, a serious and costly public health issue, and a challenge for family, friends, and health care providers who must give support to the individual suffering from the physical as well as the emotional consequences of pain.

Pain is a feeling triggered in the nervous system. Pain may be sharp or dull. It may come and go, or it may be constant. You may feel pain in one area of your body, such as your back, abdomen, or chest, or you may feel pain all over, such as when your muscles ache from the flu.

Pain can be helpful. Without pain, you might seriously hurt yourself without knowing it, or you might not realize you have a medical problem that needs treatment. Once you take care of the problem, pain usually goes away. However, sometimes pain goes on for weeks, months, or even years. Fortunately, there are many ways to treat pain. Treatment varies depending on the cause of pain.

It is useful to distinguish between two basic types of pain, acute and chronic, and they differ greatly.

* Acute pain, for the most part, results from disease, inflammation, or injury to tissues. This type of pain generally comes on suddenly. For example, pain may occur after trauma or surgery, and may be accompanied by anxiety or emotional distress. The cause of acute pain can usually be diagnosed and treated, and the pain is confined to a given period of time and severity. In some rare instances, it can become chronic.
* Chronic pain is widely believed to represent disease itself. It can be made much worse by environmental and psychological factors. Chronic pain persists over a longer period of time than acute pain and is resistant to most medical treatments. It can—and often does—cause severe problems for patients.

Pain remains a major problem for people with cancer. Despite recent advances in understanding and managing pain, the majority of cancer patients experience pain that goes untreated or undertreated. A number of factors may help explain this, with the health care system, clinicians, and patients all playing a role.

Busy physicians and nurses may lack incentives to spend time talking with patients about managing pain, for instance, while government regulations limit the use of certain pain medications. Many health care professionals themselves are not adequately trained in managing pain effectively.

Many patients, for their part, are reluctant to mention pain. Some may not want to distract physicians from treating the cancer, or they may view talking about pain as complaining – as not being a “good” patient.

Most important, many assume that pain and cancer go hand-in-hand – that pain is inevitable, something to “tough out.” In fact, cancer pain can be effectively controlled in most cases, and experts have been fighting these misconceptions for years.

Such beliefs were common among 18 Canadian women with breast cancer who were recently interviewed about their experiences with pain. A summary of the interviews, published in the February Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, provides a comprehensive look at questions about pain from a group of cancer patients.

The interviews also offer a window on experiences that were, in some cases, made more difficult because the women did not know how to get help for their pain. Unfortunately, this is not uncommon among cancer patients, says Jackie Bender, a doctoral student at the University of Toronto and the study’s first author.

Her interviews consistently showed that patients lacked knowledge about the options for controlling pain, the services available for managing pain, and how to access them. She was struck that patients did not initially know such services existed.

As one woman said, “Why should I know that there are pain doctors or pain specialists out there? I had no idea.”

“Many of the women I spoke to experienced severe pain that had not been managed well,” says Ms. Bender. “Fortunately, when I spoke to them, they were receiving help from pain specialists.” At the time of the interviews the majority – more than 70 percent – were experiencing mild pain.

One woman commented, “I wish I knew then that there was a painkiller like this to alleviate my pain because… then, I wouldn’t have suffered so much, right?”

The descriptions of pain were sometimes accompanied by concerns about addiction and tolerance, particularly with respect to opioid drugs. Such concerns are common among cancer patients, though experts stress that few people who take pain medications for cancer become addicted to the medications.

Many women in the study avoided or discontinued pain medication out of fear of side effects. At the same time, some participants wanted to learn about alternative and nontraditional approaches to pain management.

The women also wanted to learn about the pain experiences of others. “People were seeking out others for support, as well as for validation that their own pain was typical or normal,” says Ms. Bender.

The participants’ questions – in all, more than 200 – may be relevant to other cancers and other diseases. The researchers, led by Dr. Alejandro R. Jadad of the Centre for Global eHealth Innovation at the University of Toronto and the University Health Network, are now looking at pain from the perspectives of patients with other chronic conditions, or who belong to different ethnic or cultural communities.

So far, the research has identified some core themes across the patient populations as well as themes that are specific to each group.

As a next step, the researchers are developing an interactive Internet tool that patients can use to explore questions about pain and communicate with other patients in pain before meeting with physicians and nurses.

“We see it as a clinical appointment preparation tool for people who have pain,” says Ms. Bender, noting that patients and health professionals have to communicate effectively about pain. The Web site aims to help patients organize their questions so that they can be addressed during appointments.

Formulating questions about pain – or any health issue – is not easy, and patients worry that their questions may take more time than is allotted for a typical consultation.

“If pain is to be managed adequately, efficient mechanisms are needed to help patients identify and articulate their questions and get answers,” the researchers wrote.

The Web site could certainly help, but real progress will involve all parties. Patients have to articulate their needs, while clinicians must create environments where people feel comfortable talking about their fears and concerns about pain.

“It is important to address pain from the very beginning of cancer treatment because unrelieved pain can further erode an already compromised quality of life,” says Ms. Bender.

As more and more people survive cancer and return to productive lives, managing pain will be critical to ensuring a good quality of life for each one.

As one woman said, “I don’t want pain to stop my life. I want to be able to live with it.”

According to press reports, some foods can fight pain. For example, a press report suggests:

“There are many foods that are recommended for pain management based on small studies,” said Dr. Joseph Sherman, chair of pain management at Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla, Calif., “Bottom line, these are just small studies. … We’d like them to be a lot more evidence based.”

Sherman lists a series of foods that may help with pain: cherries, soy, oranges, peaches, asparagus, cranberries, cauliflower and kiwi, to name a few.

But these foods won’t necessarily help erase pain for those with chronic conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis or fibromyalgia.

In the case of rheumatoid arthritis, the pain and stiffness comes from the body’s natural inflammatory response that’s gone haywire. Susan Levin, staff dietitian for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, explains that certain chemicals in fats can “fan the flames of inflammation, while others cool them down.”

So going fat-free may help avoid the inflammation. Then again, other foods may be the culprit. Levin notes that dairy, chocolate, eggs, citrus, meat, wheat, corn and nuts can exacerbate inflammation, along with beverages such as red wine, coffee, tea and sodas.

“I would recommend avoiding the common triggers completely for four weeks, then reintroduce one at a time every two days,” Levin writes in an e-mail. “Elimination diets can help pinpoint the cause of other chronic pain issues such as rheumatoid arthritis and back pain. When researchers began to suspect that foods played a role in arthritis, some eliminated the problem by putting patients on a supervised fast for several days. As it turns out, it works well. The vast majority of patients improve, and the relief is often striking.”