Sleep disorders and chronic pain: when to see a doctor, how to change sleep habits?

For patients who suf­fer from chron­ic pain and do not get good, sta­ble rest, it is com­mon­ly believed that their phys­i­cal dis­com­fort inter­feres with sleep pat­terns. A new study pub­lished in Novem­ber in the jour­nal BMC Mus­cu­loskele­tal Dis­or­ders sug­gests that the link between sleep dis­tur­bances and chron­ic pain is more com­plex. These find­ings add to a num­ber of stud­ies that sug­gest that poor sleep is linked to a range of health prob­lems, includ­ing an increased risk of car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­ease, dia­betes, cog­ni­tive prob­lems, mood dis­or­ders, and even can­cer. There­fore, it is impor­tant to make an appoint­ment with a doc­tor and exam­i­na­tion, a full treat­ment of pain and sleep dis­or­ders.

Insomnia and chronic pain

A recent study shows that a vari­ety of sleep prob­lems — includ­ing dif­fi­cul­ty falling asleep and sleep­ing deeply, ear­ly awak­en­ing, lack of restora­tive sleep need­ed to rest the body, and fatigue — are impor­tant pre­dic­tors of the future devel­op­ment of chron­ic pain. The researchers col­lect­ed data from 1,249 Swedish peo­ple to ana­lyze five-year results and 791 Swedes to eval­u­ate results over 18 years of their lives. The study sug­gests that the link between fatigue and chron­ic body pain is due to the for­ma­tion of pain points (points) and pos­si­bly dys­reg­u­la­tion of pain sys­tems, rather than men­tal health prob­lems or sleep dis­or­ders. The study high­lights the impor­tance of prop­er­ly assess­ing sleep if a patient already has chron­ic pain of any loca­tion. If a per­son does not sleep well, he per­ceives pain more acute­ly, anal­gesics and oth­er meth­ods of treat­ment work worse.

The problem of a good night’s rest and perception of pain

There are tens of thou­sands of reg­u­la­tors in the body that deter­mine pain and its strength, dura­tion and inten­si­ty. Our bod­ies can fil­ter expe­ri­ences and sen­sa­tions, includ­ing pain. If, for exam­ple, a bone in a leg is bro­ken, but a fire alarm occurs, a per­son will find a way to get out of a burn­ing build­ing by tem­porar­i­ly sup­press­ing pain sig­nals. The body fil­ters every sig­nal that enters the brain, whether it is a sig­nal of pain or a sig­nal of plea­sure. Get­ting a good night’s sleep and qual­i­ty rest for the body improves fil­ter per­for­mance. A new study high­lights how poor sleep is asso­ci­at­ed with fatigue and more severe chron­ic pain. Patients suf­fer­ing from chron­ic pain should be exam­ined by a doc­tor and iden­ti­fy sleep dis­or­ders, nor­mal­ize their night­ly rest in order to improve the effec­tive­ness of pain man­age­ment.

Causes of sleep disorders: pathologies, diseases, disorders

Poor sleep can be caused by a num­ber of dis­or­ders, includ­ing:

• Somat­ic dis­eases (car­diac, res­pi­ra­to­ry, diges­tive).
• The devel­op­ment of sleep apnea, which occurs when the upper air­ways are repeat­ed­ly blocked dur­ing sleep.
• Insom­nia, in which peo­ple have trou­ble falling asleep, often wak­ing up with­out return­ing to nor­mal sleep, caus­ing symp­toms such as fatigue, mood prob­lems, and drowsi­ness.
• Rest­less legs syn­drome, a sleep dis­or­der that caus­es a strong, often over­whelm­ing urge to move the legs dur­ing rest, such as while lying in bed.

Good sleep is cru­cial for over­all health, pre­ven­tion of seri­ous dis­eases, includ­ing car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­ease. For the pre­ven­tion of dis­eases and good rest, it is impor­tant to observe the reg­i­men and hygiene of sleep. To begin with, you need to refrain from view­ing any bright screens, at least an hour before bed­time. This means that the patient must stop watch­ing TV and using their cell phone or com­put­er at least 60 min­utes before going to bed. These devices cre­ate a glow that acti­vates the brain rather than calm­ing it down so the per­son can fall asleep. Also, avoid caf­feine in the after­noon and try to exer­cise at least six days a week for at least 30 min­utes a day. It is also impor­tant to reduce the con­sump­tion of exces­sive­ly salty foods, which can cause thirst, increase blood pres­sure, which pro­vokes vas­cu­lar dis­ease and heart over­load with the kid­neys. Lim­it­ing or avoid­ing alco­holic bev­er­ages is also ben­e­fi­cial. Drink­ing alco­hol can help you fall asleep, but it can make it hard­er to achieve deep, restora­tive sleep.

Doctor appointment and examination

If sleep prob­lems have become per­sis­tent, an appoint­ment with a neu­rol­o­gist or gen­er­al prac­ti­tion­er is impor­tant. Your health­care provider can help you iden­ti­fy sleep prob­lems, sug­gest med­ica­tions, or sug­gest cog­ni­tive ther­a­py. If these strate­gies don’t work, your doc­tor may rec­om­mend mak­ing an appoint­ment with your doc­tor at a sleep cen­ter to rule out sleep apnea and oth­er sleep dis­or­ders. At the Sleep Cen­ter, physi­cians who study and treat com­plex sleep dis­or­ders can pro­vide accu­rate diag­no­sis and treat­ment strate­gies.

An appoint­ment with a doc­tor of a spe­cial­ized cen­ter is need­ed in order to accu­rate­ly study all kinds of health prob­lems that make it impos­si­ble to sleep and rest nor­mal­ly dur­ing the night. For exam­ple, if the prob­lem is relat­ed to the air­ways, treat­ment may involve wear­ing a mask that chan­nels air. In some cas­es, surgery may be required to open the upper air­ways. Dur­ing the exam­i­na­tion, while var­i­ous tests and ana­lyzes are being car­ried out, the doc­tor may ask the patient to keep a sleep jour­nal, not­ing any prob­lems that occur dur­ing the night or when falling asleep.

How to help with sleep disorders?

Many peo­ple in our coun­try are deprived of qual­i­ty sleep. Stud­ies show that about a third of the pop­u­la­tion of the coun­try suf­fer from insom­nia at some time in their lives. What’s more, 10% of the pop­u­la­tion has chron­ic insom­nia that lasts three months or longer. Research shows that cog­ni­tive behav­ioral ther­a­py for insom­nia pro­vides bet­ter long-term results than oth­er treat­ments, even med­ica­tions. Habit con­trol tech­niques include cre­at­ing pos­i­tive bed-to-good-sleep asso­ci­a­tions and elim­i­nat­ing bad habits such as using elec­tron­ic devices before bed.

It is also nec­es­sary to lim­it day­time sleep so that the patient is tired by night, walks, fresh air and phys­i­cal activ­i­ty as pre-sleep rit­u­als. Cog­ni­tive Behav­ioral Ther­a­py also includes tips to help you sleep bet­ter, ways to calm down an hour or two before bed­time, mak­ing the room qui­et and cool, and remov­ing all irri­tants from it. If these treat­ments don’t work, your doc­tor may pre­scribe med­ica­tion.