Major chronic pain discovery

I just had to comment on this one.  Sally Lawson and Laiche Djouhri of the University of Bristol (in the UK) made a discovery about chronic pain that could have major implications.  Thanks to The Daily Headache for bringing this one to our attention.

For years the best assumption was that much chronic pain was related to damaged nerve fibres.  Much of the research into treatment started with this assumption.  So imagine their surprise when they discovered that healthy nerve fibres were transmitting pain messages!  These are specific types of nerve fibres called nociceptors, the smallest ones of all.

I believe that the question mark at the end of the post title at The Daily Headache is appropriate.  I think you’ll see overly optimistic reporting on this one, as is often the case.  The fact of the matter is that the researchers aren’t entirely sure why these pain signals are being transmitted.

Sally Lawson speculates that the healthy fibers are getting messages from nearby damaged fibers.  When a nerve fiber is damaged, it gives off inflammation signals.  So it would be like these healthy fibres are telling us, "What do you think we are, stupid?!  Do you think we would rely on damaged fibres to warn you of a problem?"

That being said, this still looks like a major step forward.  The researchers are going to move ahead to gain an understanding of exactly why these pain signals are being sent.  Except now they’ll be looking in the right place, and not in the same old place we’ve been looking for 50 years.  Jeffrey S Mogil is on of McGill University’s Canada Research Chairs and a psychology and pain professor and researcher.  His reaction:  The important thing here is that all of drug development for pain in the past 50 years has been looking at how drugs work, and no one has looked at spontaneous pain. The reason for the problem may have been people were studying the wrong symptom.  This will help force a shift on how pain research is done – a shift for the better.

This is one to watch.  I suspect that our children will be thankful for this discovery at the very least.  But here’s hoping the progress of pain research moves faster than that.  For more, check out this brief article from about the chronic pain discovery.