New Thinking on Whether Adult Pain Stems from Childhood Trauma
Do you think you’re sick today because of trauma you suffered during childhood? Or does the very idea of that get your blood boiling because it ties fibromyalgia (FMS) and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS or ME/CFS) to psychological causes?
According to an address a the American Pain Society’s annual meeting, it depends on the type of trauma.
Gary Macfarlane, MD, who’s a professor at Scotland’s University of Aberdeen School of Medicine, says a 50-year study of 17,000 children showed that adverse childhood events, such as abuse, are no more common in adults with pain as in those without it. He says, however, that some pain patients appear more likely to remember such events.
When children have frequent pain, though, they are three times more likely to have chronic pain as adults, he says. Also, the study shows babies who were in intensive care and went through invasive procedures were more sensitive to pain later in life - demonstrating that early pain may influence how your body interprets pain.
What do you think of this study? Is it discounting a possible cause of FMS or ME/CFS? Or is it validating the fact that these are physiological conditions and not psychological ones? Tell us how you feel by leaving comments here or in About.com’s Fibromyalgia & Chronic Fatigue Syndrome forum.
Adrienne Dellwo
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From my experience of understanding people i feel it is correct. And this truma caused in childhood reflects the activities and reactions of the person( when he is adult).
Well, duhh. If health problems are indeed an aftereffect of adverse childhood events, (which I believe), that does NOT mean that they are merely psychological.
Adversity is stressful. Stress raises cortisol levels. Research shows that ongoing abuse raises cortisol levels permanently. Elevated cortisol levels can be destructive in many ways, especially over a lifetime.
So how is that “all in your head?”
I have been doing much research around this question. It seems quite clear that childhood trauma is linked to pain and illness. I second what Adrienne had to say - trauma causes physiological changes in the body - brain size, brain chemistry, cortisol levels, other neurotransmitter levels and much more.
After enduring abuse and the resulting pain and illness my entire life, I can say for sure that the pain and illness a very real. I believe that healing my psyche from the abuse can help heal some of the health problems. So, a therapist or some way to work through the issues is usually necessary. However, this does not mean that the pain and illness are “all in your head”. We miss the boat when we try to divide body, mind and spirit and treat them as if only one needs to be healed.
The study indicates that “adverse childhood events, such as abuse, are no more common in adults with pain as in those without it. He says, however, that some pain patients appear more likely to remember such events.”
Any one that has serious and disabling pain tends to spend less time engaged in work, sport, and social activities and more time resting and thinking, often about their past.
You can’t seperate the mind from the body so yes it could, especially early childhood / infancy trama as this is when the brain is making nurological connections.
I suppose I’ve been through all of these theories in various forms for so many years now, that I can only say that until a person experiences chronic pain, they will not understand it. After many years of therapy of all kinds, including anti depressants and anti seizure drug experimentation, I say that this never to go away theory is only a way to divert our attention or to give us false hope. Of course we are body mind and spirit. I do know the difference between emotional pain and physical pain. They should be dealt with as two separate issues. Pain with disease or injury is real. To make it otherwise, is cruel and insulting. My pain from Multiple Sclerosis, Fibromyalgia and advanced Osteoporosis, to name a few of my “mental” suffering conditions, is one of the hardest handicaps to overcome or contend with on a daily basis. I don’t want anti seizure or anti depressant drugs poured down me so I can remain in a constant stupor so I won’t bother anyone, including the physicians who prescribe it. This theory does however give Psychological Therapist and Psychiatrists a long career with many never ending patients, so why not believe it? Know your source and motives for these so called studies. Ask who does the interpretation of the studies and ask whether some pharmaceutical firm is suddenly backing a study, or for that matter, a support group, while trying to get a new tweaked drug approved for market. There is a difference between drug dependence and addiction. If a person cannot have any quality of life due to real and debilitating pain, of course they will become emotional and depressed. I think it is often more of a symptom of an illness not yet found by the physicians. Until the MRI, my MS was not diagnosed. Until the scan was performed that diagnosed my Osteoporosis, no one believed that I had constant pain. Whether it is chronic or constant, opiate pain medication has been the only pharmaceutical that helps me get up and moving and living an active life, including social interaction. Everyone has trauma at some time in their life. Yes it should be dealt with. But I highly recommend independent thinking when it is suggested that your suffering is caused from some childhood trauma. If one cannot distinguish between past trauma emotional problems and pain from disease or injury , then perhaps a psychoanalyst is right for them. In the meantime, let us make the distinction between the two and move on to a more realistic viewpoint and opinion about pain. In any case, ruling out the emotional cause is remaining on the list of priorities when a patient complains of pain. It is much easier and less expensive for the insurers than finding out what disease might be undetected or undiagnosed. So until it happens to you, it is easy to form such conclusions found in that recent study. The percentages found in the study probably equal that of the general population, whether a disease or illness is present. It always amazes me that until pain is present, no one ever suggests that you might have “emotional issues from trauma”. Give me a break, tell it like it is……. if you have no functioning brain, the pain won’t be realized.
Boy hasn’t this topic been tossed up in the air for a lot of people with chronic pain and Illnesses.
Ok here is where I stand on the topic from someone who has Complex Regional Pain Syndrome and has suffered abuse as a child.
I believe anybody who has suffered PTSD from whatever cause or associated depression over a number of years whilst a child or teenager is at a higher risk of developing real pain and real illnesses due to the physiological changes caused by the PTSD and or depression. I think it may be a predisposing factor, but that has yet to be proven with sufficient study.
What I don’t believe - All illness and pain is psychologically derived.
I believe many people are incorrectly diagnosed with “Somatisization Disorder”…….
My case is very unique in the fact I had previously healed from my childhood abuse and had conquered my PTSD and associated depression. Not many people can claim this, but I am not tramatised a minute longer, I won’t let them have that over me anymore. I am a pillar of strength with much more power in my hands now. I over came my past 2 years before I injured my ankle.
May be the circumstances surrounding the injury - Anger towards a company about why and how it happened and needing time out during studying my university degree. The longer it took to “heal” the more panicked I was that my life as I wanted it to be wasn’t going to happen. There was psychological stress associated with it being a work injury before the CRPS diagnosis.
Perhaps all the stress associated with my injury helped to throw my nervous system into dysfunction. Perhaps the long standing psychological stress that my body once knew made my nervous sytem more fragile to being dysfunctional in producing the wrong quantities neurotransmitters and the other Real physical changes that occur neurologically.
I am in severe pain and I do spend a lot of my time at home but I don’t sit around muddling over my past. I did that when I was “healing” psychologically 2 years before being injured. If anything it has made dealing with my “Adjustment Disorder” more easy, I know how to deal with myself and work through things. I am emotionally smarter.
May be because of my past I am able to deal with my CRPS & its associated depression more easily.
I think my case presents itself as very interesting considering I have learnt from the past and moved on, yet I suffer CRPS. But I believe psychological trauma can make the body systems more vulnerable to dysfunction, whether it be past or present trauma.
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It makes perfect sense to me that pain pathways in your brain are solidified by repetition just like practicing the piano or playing catch, and that people who suffered a lot of pain as children may become more sensitive to pain as adults. However, just because a person feels pain more easily does not make that pain any less real for them.