149: Why pain persists: from childhood trauma to faulty immunity

Airing Pain #149: Why pain persists: from childhood trauma to faulty immunity

This edition of Airing Pain looks at the research into why pain persists, how we can identify people at risk and whether we could prevent it happening.

In this episode:

• How does acute short-term pain turn into chronic, persistent pain? Kathleen Sluka explains that people who experience psychological trauma at young ages are more likely to have chronic pain later in life. What scientists think is happening is that psychological trauma or other stressful events actually change your immune system.
• Shafiq Skikander adds that a lot of patients with fibromyalgia may have had early life stressors. In addition, when they come to clinic presenting with fibromyalgia, they usually have a history of depression.

So how does this happen?

• Gareth Hathway explains that slowly but surely, our understanding of the basic mechanisms is advancing. We now understand that babies do feel pain, young people do feel pain. It has a long-term consequence. We need a specialist approach to managing pain at every part of the life course. We need to think about how we measure that pain and how we treat that pain.

The interviews were recorded at the British Pain Society’s Annual Scientific Meeting, 2024.

Contributors: 

Shafiq Sikander, a professor of sensory neurophysiology at the William Harvey Research Institute, Queen Mary University, London.

Gareth Hathway, professor of neuroscience at the University of Nottingham’s’ school of life sciences.

Kathleen Sluka, a professor in physical therapy and rehabilitation science at the University of Iowa in the United States.

Thanks

The interviews were recorded at the British Pain Society’s Annual Scientific Meeting, 2024. 

This programme describes research using laboratory animals that is consistent with Pain Concern’s Humane Care and Use of Animals in Medical Research Policy. 

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