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Main Category: Fibromyalgia
Also Included In: Arthritis / Rheumatology; Body Aches; Psychology / Psychiatry
Article Date: 24 Sep 2010 - 4:00 PDT window.fbAsyncInit = function() { FB.init({ appId: 'aa16a4bf93f23f07eb33109d5f1134d3', status: true, cookie: true, xfbml: true, channelUrl: 'http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/scripts/facebooklike.html'}); }; (function() { var e = document.createElement('script'); e.async = true; e.src = document.location.protocol + '//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js'; document.getElementById('fb-root').appendChild(e); }());
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Researchers from Utrecht University who studied the effect of negative emotions on pain perception in women with and without fibromyalgia found that anger and sadness amplified pain equally in both groups. Full findings are now online and will publish in the October print issue of Arthritis Care & Research, a journal of the American College of Rheumatology.
Fibromyalgia (FM), a chronic pain condition, has among the largest impact of all rheumatic and chronic pain conditions. In addition to chronic, widespread pain, patients report accompanying symptoms such as fatigue, functional disability, and psychological distress. FM is thought to involve heightened pain sensitivity to a variety of psychophysical and emotional stimuli, with negative emotions believed to be experienced more strongly in FM patients than in the general population.
The Utrecht team theorized that specific negative emotions such as sadness and anger also would increase pain more in women with FM than in healthy women. Their study examined the effects of experimentally-induced anger and sadness on self-reported clinical and experimentally-induced pain in women with and without FM. Participants consisted of 62 women with FM and 59 women without FM. Both groups were asked to recall a neutral situation, followed by recalling both an anger-inducing and a sadness-inducing situation, in counterbalanced order. The effect of these emotions on pain responses (non-induced clinical pain and experimentally-induced sensory threshold, pain threshold, and pain tolerance) was analyzed with a repeated-measures analysis of variance.
Self-reported clinical pain always preceded the experimentally-induced pain assessments and consisted of reporting current pain levels ("now, at this moment") on a scale ranging from "no pain at all" to "intolerable pain." Clinical pain reports were analyzed in women with FM only. Electrical pain induction was used to assess experimentally-induced pain. Participants pressed a button when they felt the current (sensory threshold) and when it became painful (pain threshold) and intolerable (pain tolerance). Four pain assessments were conducted per condition, and very high internal consistencies were obtained.
More pain was indicated by both the clinical pain reports in women with FM and pain threshold and tolerance in both groups in response to anger and sadness induction. Sadness reactivity predicted clinical pain responses. Anger reactivity predicted both clinical and electrically-stimulated pain responses.
Both women with and women without FM manifested increased pain in response to the induction of both anger and sadness, and greater emotional reactivity was associated with a greater pain response. "We found no convincing evidence for a larger pain response to anger or sadness in either study group (women with, or without FM), said study leader Henriët van Middendorp, Ph.D. "In women with FM, sensitivity was roughly the same for anger and sadness."
Dr. van Middendorp concludes, "Emotional sensitization of pain may be especially detrimental in people who already have high pain levels. Research should test techniques to facilitate better emotion regulation, emotional awareness, experiencing, and processing."
In a related study, a research team from Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre found that tailored cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and exercise training tailored to pain-avoidance or pain-persistence patterns at a relatively early stage after diagnosis is likely to promote beneficial treatment outcomes for high-risk patients with FM.
The Nijmegen team evaluated the effects of this approach in a randomized controlled trial. The study compared a waiting list control condition (WLC) with patients in a treatment condition (TC) to demonstrate improvements in physical and psychological functioning and in the overall impact of FM.
Sources: Wiley - Blackwell, AlphaGalileo Foundation.
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posted by Dr. Robin Mayfield on 24 Sep 2010 at 9:44 amSpeaking from personal experience, in my youth I had no idea what anger even felt like. If you asked me, I would say that I didn't get angry, I was just too "even keeled". Before I did my own personal therapy after the death of my mother, I had no idea that I was suppressing anger. Now I know that it was showing up in the form of depression, passive-aggressive behaviors, and bowel disturbances. So many times people will blame their physical symptoms on "I inherited this from my mother, she has bowel problems, too", or "It runs in my family". The truth often is that what we inherit is the way we deal (or don't deal) with our emotions, which then creates physical symptoms. The vast majority of the time, depression is repressed anger. We store anger in the body in our liver, which sets the stage for faulty natural detoxification pathways. Releasing the anger can solve so many things! Thanks for the article.
Dr. Robin Mayfield
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posted by A Daughter & A Mother on 26 Sep 2010 at 10:53 pm
Always, being the one to rely on with a smile on my face, after being "taken down" time and again, I came to a point of fighting back.
No one ever expected the change, nor did I. In some ways the fight is for the good in helping others. But, in other situations, I am fighting to also be heard!
I wish for the days of old, when my life was calmer and I was in a lot less pain emotionally and physically. Years bring too many events that don't always allow us to have those continuation of memorable quiet and peaceful times. Life is what it is and we do become the victims of it. Even when we wish to just be left alone.
The racing of the heart and the aches in the body will reflect those moments of unwanted reaction. But at the same time a necessary means of survival day-to-day, I am sorry to say.
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