Sleep deprivation and chronic pain are two problems that nobody wants to deal with, but unfortunately they often go hand in hand. These two problems are often related because they both feed off one another. For example, people who develop chronic back pain often lose the ability to achieve restful sleep, and the restorative sleep process is helpful for calming inflammation and controlling pain. If you don’t get enough sleep, pain can become more intense, which again cripples your ability to get restful sleep, and the cycle continues.
Pain and Sleep Loss
To better understand the relationship between sleep deprivation and pain, researchers conducted a sleep study. The study asked 25 adults to come into the lab on two separate occasions. During each visit, a heat pad was applied to their skin near the ankle. The temperature was carefully controlled by researchers, and patients were asked to grade their discomfort on a scale from 1-10. Measurements were taken once after the patient received a full night’s sleep, and once after they pulled an all-nighter.
After comparing the pain scores, researchers uncovered that everyone’s sensitivity to heat increased 15 to 30 percent on the pain scale after pulling the all-nighter.
“What’s exciting about these findings is that they will stimulate, and justify, doing more research to figure this system out,” said Michael J. Twery, director of the sleep disorders branch of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, who was not involved in the new study. “Once we understand how sleep deprivation changes how these pathways function, we should be able to manage pain more effectively — all types of pain.”
The study also took images of the patient’s brain during the heat tests. They found that after the all-nighter, activity in the brain’s pain perception regions increased, while there were decreases in activity in areas of the brain that help to regulate or manage pain.
“So you have two things happening at once here,” said Dr. Walker, director of the Center for Human Sleep Science at U.C. Berkeley. “There’s ramped up sensation to pain, and a loss of natural analgesic reaction. The fact that both of them happen was surprising.”
So while it’s certainly easier said than done, if you’re dealing with chronic pain, one area that’s worth examining is your sleep quality. Really make it a point to get good, quality sleep on a regular basis. You can try to do this by going to bed around the same time every night, making the bedroom as dark as possible, and by keeping distractions like your TV or iPhone to a minimum. You can also talk to your doctor or neurospecialist about other options for achieving restful sleep. Because while it may not be the only treatment option for your pain, it can be one of the most effective if you can find a way to routinely achieve restorative sleep.
For more information, or if you have pain that you want diagnosed, reach out to Dr. Chang’s office today.