6/13/11 Two new studies add weight to the increasingly recognized theory that trauma is a factor in the development of chronic pain.
The first study, published online in the Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, found a link between childhood physical abuse and functional somatic syndromes like fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome and multiple chemical sensitivities.
“The majority of people abused won’t develop these syndromes and the major of people with these syndromes won’t have been abused. There’s just a greater likelihood that those abused may have a link to these conditions,” explains lead author Esme Fuller-Thomson, PhD, Professor & Sandra Rotman Chair in the Faculties of Social Work, Medicine & Nursing at the University of Toronto.
Researchers asked more than 7,000 women from two Canadian provinces if they had experienced physical abuse by someone close to them during their childhood while they were still living at home. Participants were also asked if they’d ever been diagnosed by a health professional with fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome or other related conditions.
“People who reported they were physically abused also were more likely to report they had these health conditions,” Fuller-Thomson says. Results show that women who reported childhood physical abuse were more than twice as likely to have chronic fatigue syndrome, and 65 percent more likely to have fibromyalgia than women who didn’t report a history of childhood physical abuse.
Researchers aren’t citing a direct cause and they don’t know how to fully explain the association, but they wonder if chronic stress plays a role. “These are things that need to be looked at. Since we don’t know in general what causes these conditions its hard to say. It’s possible that chronic stress makes you more sensitive to pain,” Fuller-Thomson explains. She says while scientists search for answers, she’d like to see proactive work done with abused children to help them with coping strategies and mental health interventions to try and offset problems as they get older.
The second study, published in the March 11 issue of Arthritis Care & Research, found that being in a traffic accident was associated with developing chronic widespread pain.
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Thanks for the article.
In response to a disbelievers comment:
The greatest mistake in the treatment of diseases is that there
are physicians for the body and physicians for the soul,
although the two cannot be separated.
Plato (427–347 BC)
I have quite a story. I was unwanted from conception and my mother cried every weds thru her pregnancy (yup you guessed it... the day she got prego with me). That was a start of a life of abuse and abandonment by my mom. She also raised me in a cult...and used the religious bs to further her campaign to label me 'evil'. Where's the dad you may ask? Well he became a raging IV drug addict (mostly cocaine)but once the money ran out I think everything was on the table. Although, my dad was the ONLY person who offered me unconditional love regardless how he tried to destroy himself (he has severe PTSD from Maternal childhood abuse).
I was always the strong one. I held everything together while siblings struggled (I was the most abused as I was the unwanted one... the one who destroyed Mom's life). I began reading "The Child Within" when I was a mere 15 yrs old...cause I figured I would also be an abusive Mom ...and wanted to prevent it.
Looking back here are my big issues. In 1st grade my pinky bagan to hurt and was all bent like the bone had been broken off and shoved back together...but not straight. At 15 my hands and feet became massively swollen (I couldn't walk as my toes couldn't even touch the floor). Cancer at 26, thyroid. Through all of this time I was able to successfully have work and travelled around the world. No major health probs or emotional ones.
Then 5 yrs ago I was in Ecuador on a train when all of a sudden an electrical wire connected to 2 buildings caught my neck and hung me (I was pinned down thus stretched until one end of the wire ripped off of a building). I have never been the same again. 5 surgeries later I was diagnosed with RA and Fibromyalgia when the RA cells were found when they were rebuilding my thumb. I am on disability...but now I am massively depressed and frankly suicidal (4 attempts thus far...have just bought a gun, won't fail again).
When someone has trauma in one's past...and trauma incurred by accident in adulthood... and now enduring chronic pain and the knowledge one will NEVER get well...only become more and more disabled. How does one cope? How to heal the PTSD..multi layers AND PTSD from the pain...
Since the article discusses the relation to PTSD (essentially) and auto-immune disease... where do the damaged ones like me go? How do we cope? Is there any progress on remission of RA with addressing PTSD? Where is the rest of the field on this absolutely apt theory? Is there any coordination between Eastern and Western medicine to address this theory? So many more questions as I try to keep my drowning head above water...
Thanks in advance... sorry for the novel. :-) Robin
When you are in physical pain, your mind is easily distracted and your heart often becomes heavy with emotion, especially chronic conditions.
When you are in Mental stress, (for example night terrors) your body responds with symptoms such as elevated blood pressure, rapid heart rate, tightness in the chest, cold sweats and your emotions can be anxious, frustrated, annoyed, nervous...
When your heart emotion is angry / rage, your mind does not think clearly and your body often responds with adrenal dumps, elevated heart rate, accelerated breathing, body tension, elevated blood pressure and so on...
Western medicine often looks at each of these three parts of the human experience as being separate but they are not. They each support or weigh on each other as this article strongly suggests. One must take care of the body, mind and heart connections to find true balance and health.
Your life story sounds a lot like mine. A hemorrhage with my last C-section set up tendinitis along the deep back & hip muscles. For 10 years I've not been able to be involved with my children in activities as I would have liked. The pain has about driven me mad despite pain treatment.
After several years I lost my hips due to altered gait. Just this year the doctors have found that my back has been unstable & fused it, but for years I was believed by only a handful of doctors but no one could explain the widespread pain syndrome that I dealt with when it was so severe..
They had alachol problems and were in denial.
I had very stressful job in 2005 and physically stressful job 2006-2009. I was then diagnosed with Fibromyalgia and RA in 2008.
Through all the other responses I see I am not the only one. I don't think this is a coincidence. I will continue through day by day with the support of my family and God. I will pray for all of you.
I also was physically, mentally and sexually abused as a child. I never thought those things could have any connection to my health problems. I sure hope when all the research is done that they will find something that can erase the abuse. It seems logical to me that if the abuse contributed to the disorder, that erasing the abuse would improve the disorder.
God is the reason that I want to live. If it wasn't for knowing that he has a plan for my life, it would be so easy to end it.
i too was abused from age two through my teens, when i ran away.'I was hit with whatever was handy. Brooms,blinds belts,brushes. You name it I experienced it.
there are days when the pain is just so bad i want to end it all, thank God that I have a son whom I just can't do that too.
the walk-in closet doors & beat me. Either of three methods were used: his hand spanking, his belt whipping me, or the wooden yardstick (all on my rear). None of the three choices were good, as he was super strong. No RA has ever been in either side of the family, so guess we'll never know for certain what caused this disabling condition. I forgave him a long time ago, but never forgot. He hated his own mother for being so strict, but he followed in her exact footsteps. Let's just say, the good Lord gave me the courage to persevere!
Since then my immune system went MIA :( and I’ve developed other conditions years later. Please doctors,family, & friends, stop assuming since You can’t see it, nothing is wrong! THAT itself can cause Major Depression and lead to even worse outcomes... 13yrs later my heart has become damaged and I haven’t even hit 40 yet.
I believe both were the results of emotional distress. I had gotten a promotion at work to be a department manager (I did not have any experience, but do have good leadership qualities), which I took very seriously (too seriously). I would work 12-14 hour shifts 5-6 days a week. It got to be so bad that I would go home and cry myself to sleep. Finally I decided that it was not worth it. after about 6 months, I was started swelling and my knees, feet and hands would hurt all the time. Anyone who goes through this knows there isn't a 10 day fix. It takes time and trial and error to find the right meds. In the meantime you can go through depression. It's hard for people who don't have this illness to understand the toll it takes not only on your body but also on your mind.
Anyway, after many doctor visits and medication changes I would still have pain. That's when my doctor informed me that it is very common for people with arthristis often will develop Fibromyalgia that they often go hand and hand. I believe that they were the results of emotional trauma.
No one in my family has Reheumatoid or Fibro. so it had to come on some how. Isn't it also true that we never get sick until we have relaxed and taken a step back (let our gaurd down) that we become ill.
Well, Thank you for writing this article. I hope that it will not take too long for people to realize the connection. Good luck.
Louise
Suzanne
Scranton RSD group
Suzanne
Scranton RSD support group leader
Tammy
i had alto of trauma in childhood from heavy abuse..so yeah i have alot of chronic pain..i have both rhumatoid and osteo arthritis in a big portion of my body..
it is hard for people to undestand living with chronic pain..it flutuates in severity so to outsiders doesnt look as bad..but they dont see you on the bad days when to jsut walk is very difficult and painful..
it has ben known for a long time that truama has phycological effects both temorarily and chronically...it shoudl be obvious that it aslo has simiar physiological affects..
I do believe there is a conection. As a child thruogh my early adulthood I suffered every trauma that is mentioned from the early age of 2yrs old.I 1st began the trauma in my life by suffered being caught on fire with 3rd degree burns,sexual abuse emotional, phsical abuse, car accidents broken legs,toes almost cut off, my feet where always in sitiches for somereason or another, suffered domestic violence for years and all the emotional abuse that goes along with it.The the trauma of 1/2 a dozen illnesses and major sugeries, I suffer from fibro, post traumatic disorder, degeneration in my lower spine.I suffer with the pain 365 days a year 24 hours a day, the treatments only take the edge off a little. Im sure it has to do with a painful life up until this point.......
spouse. Ditched the spouse, parents dead. I have RA Fibro
and acute foot pain.Dx 5 years ago Now on disability.
Never thought my history was the reason,
blamed it on radiation therapy for breast
Ca 7 years ago. Up to then I was active
worked 2 jobs and at the top of my game.
This all brought me down like a stone.
I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis 4 years ago, which seemed to come 'out of the blue.' I awoke one morning in severe phusical pain. I had experienced some emotional trauma while visiting out sons (out of state, where they live) to see our new grandson, (our fifth and last grandchild). Our sons are married to sisters, who were raised in a dysfunctional home. They are difficult women and spending time with them has never been very pleasurable. One is easier to get along with than the other.
At the age of 28, I was diagnosed with acute ulcerative colitis: toxic megacolon, spending 5 weeks in ICU and 2 mos in hospital. I miraculously was raised from death bed. Lived healthy until 2002, when I was diagnosed w/ endometrial cancer, resulting in hysterectomy and retiring from senior pastor position at our local church. I am currently writing my first book, which includes teaching on how emotional problems manifest in the body, causing dis-ease. Also the testimony of how I became so ill and was raised from deathbed to live out my life's purpose and destiny.
Thanks,
Rubylove
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