It doesn’t matter where the pain is coming from. Long-term pain increases stress levels, decreases sleep and exercise, and can lead to social isolation – all things that can make pain worse. Thus, a change in the "volume control" of the central nervous system isn’t necessarily to blame when a patient experiences worsening over time, rather it may be the accumulation of these other factors, he said at the meeting held by Global Academy for Medical Education. GAME and this news organization are owned by Frontline Medical Communications.
"Unless and until you treat these patients with exercise, education, and cognitive-behavioral therapy ... you’re not going to make chronic pain patients better, and you’re certainly not going to make centralized pain patients better unless you aggressively use [these tools]," he said.
Dr. Clauw has been a consultant for Merck, UCB, Cypress Biosciences, Eli Lilly, Jazz Pharmaceuticals, Pierre Fabre Pharmaceuticals, Pfizer, Nuvo Research, and Forest Laboratories, and has received grant support from Nuvo Research and Forest Laboratories.