CommonEar474 t1_ixdlhn9 wrote
Reply to comment by cristiano-potato in When a person gets stomach flu (viral gastroenteritis) or food poisoning, what exactly is happening in the body that causes stomach cramps? by geekonthemoon
Hopefully the research I do will help! Not to get to into it too much but what I want to do is understand how systems that represent negative affect (feeling bad) become disordered in addiction, anxiety and chronic pain. A lot of time chronic pain is a result of abnormalities in the brain that cause a persistence of negative affect… it becomes nearly impossible to not constantly think about your pain and feel awful. This is why cbt and meditation can be so helpful. I want to figure out how these systems that generate our affective awareness work.
cristiano-potato t1_ixdn3q8 wrote
I’ve seen relief from migraines with supplements like B2 that are known to impact mitochondrial function but you’re the expert I dunno what else might be going on.
But absolutely yes I’ve also seen that mindset change from things like meditation or therapy can seemingly sometimes literally reduce pain.
It’s no surprise I guess that migraine and anxiety are so often linked, although of course you have to ask if it’s due to some underlying common etiology (word?) or whether it’s simply that chronic pain induces a state of fear… probably a little of both.
Addiction, even if not literal physical dependence I think is common in migraine too… video games addiction or porn or whatever it is, seems very common…
You have no idea how much joy you could spread to the world in figuring these things out, probably over a billion people are suffering from chronic pain and just want it to end, Godspeed to you I wish you the best, many of us need help
CommonEar474 t1_ixe5fdx wrote
I think the reason there’s so much overlap between chronic pain, anxiety, depression, addiction… is because pain is, among other things, an emotion. More specifically it is an emotion driven by internal sensations.
To understand this overlap let’s take anxiety as an example. Imagine you are walking home and want to take a turn down an alley that will get you home faster. Your stomach drops, and you decide it’s best to take the long way. Here a sensory experience led to negative affect (anxiety) that turned you away from a bad choice. In an anxiety disorder however, an individual is hyper sensitive to changes in their body— this means that this negative affect/anxiety is likely to come up a lot more often when it’s unnecessary
In pain, a painful experience leads to a negative affective state, the kind that might make you feel awful, groan or cry. In a typical situation this negative affect might help you, it may, for example keep you from playing soccer when you should be healing. But In chronic pain we (just like anxiety!) become overly sensitive to signals in our body and we become a lot more likely to produce negative affect. This means instead of helping us chronic pain serves virtually no purpose. Right now the best way to address this cognitive/affective aspect of pain is through therapy or meditation but in the future there may be drugs that allow you to blunt these processes. This would mean that you could be aware of pain with out feeling bad because of it. Actually this has been achieved through deep brain stimulation in like 1 person… we’ll see where that goes.
Hope u enjoy my infodump. I’m obsessed with this (and further implications into how these affective systems play a role in social cognition)
cristiano-potato t1_ixe9sc5 wrote
Yeah I mean I’ve followed a lot of the research and what you’re saying makes some sense but also is obviously a bit of a simplification right — theories about migraines talk about signals misprocessed as pain, or over-sensitization, but also mitochondrial dysfunction or even things as simple as TMJ causing tension which triggers a migraine after a tension headache… it seems like it’s a complicated picture since some people respond to certain therapies but not others…
I also wonder how much you’ve researched about dopamine imbalances. One thing I’ve wondered is how much pain or anxiety could have to do with compulsive, addictive behavior that is often used to get a rush when one is feeling down. I’ve read theories that things like anxiety or migraines are sometimes linked to dopamine issues. Maybe if someone is frying those receptors by constantly stimulating them, whether it’s hardcore porn or just their favorite video game for 8 hours a day, could they be impacting how their brain processes other info?
And in that case, maybe for some people it’s as simple as “stop doing those things and let your brain readjust to a lower level of dopamine”. And in this case, I’d think difficulty actually stopping could be indicative of finding a source of a problem right? If someone is experiencing chronic pain for example, and tries to stop doing certain behaviors because they think it may be a causative factor, but despite their brutal pain they’re unable to stop (I know someone like this) it makes me think — okay that’s truly addictive behavior. If you are literally disabled by your pain and the prospect of being pain free isn’t enough to prevent you from seeking that high, you’re hardcore addicted.
There’s a shocking dearth of research on addictive behaviors, their correlations with chronic pain conditions, and the association between cessation of the behaviors with reduction in pain levels. I can’t find a single study that, for example, took a group of pain sufferers, compared their internet surfing behaviors with a control group of pain free people, then attempted an intervention of stopping the surfing, and measuring the effects of that.
Just food for thought. I’d personally like to think pain levels are something we can modulate with behavior, and someone with pain isn’t simply doomed to always be overly sensitive. I’d like to think we can make lifestyle choices, even things as simple as getting good sleep, that will lower that threshold
CommonEar474 t1_ixes7yb wrote
Absolutely a simplification (kinda gotta do that when you look at the brain). Affects the part I wanna look at though.
I’m actually doing addiction research now too and think that addiction is similar to chronic pain in that it results in this increased affect — people with addictive disorders feel strong cravings they can not crave, they over emphasize the good feeling on the drug and perhaps most importantly they feel awful when withdrawing. Withdrawal causes increased sensitivity to pain and negative affect and likely drives addictive behavior.
Real interesting stuff
cristiano-potato t1_ixezapc wrote
Hmmmm, but what about before withdrawal, during the addiction phase? Can that cause pain issues?
cristiano-potato t1_ixeh9nt wrote
> This would mean that you could be aware of pain with out feeling bad because of it.
Also just wanted to mention — this is the theory of mindfulness and meditation which is perhaps why it has seen some success. You can genuinely be aware of pain but experience it without suffering.
The proof is in the pudding right? We’ve all seen that photo of the Buddhist monk sitting still while burning himself to death.
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