[ad_1]
A new study found that one in five kiwi suffered from chronic pain.
Pain is the main reason people go to see their GP, and new health research says professionals need to do more to understand it.
Dr. Nicola Swain, a researcher at Otago University and lead author, met this morning with TVNZ's breakfast to discuss their findings, which were published in the New Zealand Medical Journal.
Dr. Swain said, "It sounds pretty simple, but what's fascinating about pain is that everyone's pain is different, so if we have exactly the same injury, your pain and that of my pain could be different, doctors or health professionals able to say what you're going through. "
She explained that everyone felt the pain differently because it was "about our previous experiences, about our genetics, about what had happened to us before".
"The pain is really a sign that there is a danger to your tissues, so if what you interpret as a danger varies from one person to the other," she said. .
Dr. Swain said it was important that people understand the pain in order to "get the good service we need".
She added: "Doctors, of course, need a very high level of understanding to be able to administer the right treatment to the patient and, for the moment, they are not sufficiently informed about it in the context of their training ".
"We do not really recommend hardening as a treatment.The best thing to do, if you have acute pain, is that the pain that you have just hurting yourself or doing something, that is, is not the best thing you can do. is to have it treated and that it can stop it from continuing to last and becoming an increasingly important problem in your life, so it's a good idea to get yourself an ice pack or whatever something that improves it, and maybe a diagnosis if you have to go see your doctor. "
Dr. Swain explained how persistent pain can affect people's lives in many ways.
"Chronic pain – it steals life, people can not eat, they can not sleep, it affects their intimate relationships, family relationships, [and] many people retire early because of the pain, so it affects all areas of life and can be terribly serious for people. "
She said she would like to see more focus on research and pain management in New Zealand.
"We do not have an anti-pain strategy, we do not have an organized way to treat these pain sufferers out of five.We only have two tertiary treatment centers in Christchurch and in Auckland, then I'd like to focus a lot more on treating pain and looking for what is needed. "
Source link
