No Pain…GOOD!
You’ve heard the adage, “No pain, no gain.” This may be a clever way to motivate people to exercise, but when it comes to cancer and its possible conventional therapies, a more relevant expression should be, “No pain. GOOD!”.
Conventional cancer treatments are often prescribed for patients that invariably come with side effects with pain being the most common one to manage. This blog goes into the causes of pain associated with conventional cancer treatments and offers suggestions on how to manage the challenging side effects.
1. Chemotherapy Pain
Chemotherapy uses powerful drugs that can be administered in several ways, from taking a pill to having an IV. It is intended to kill cancer cells, but it can also damage healthy cells, which leads to painful side effects.
Muscle and joint pain: Patients often report feeling weak, stiff, or sore after a chemotherapy session and these symptoms can last for weeks or months.
Neuropathy: One of the most common painful side effects occurs when nerves are damaged in the body near the treatment area. Side effects include tingling, numbness, pain, and weakness. Chemotherapy agents like platin-based drugs and taxanes are notorious for causing this type of nerve pain.
Gastrointestinal pain and mouth sores: Chemo can cause mucositis, which is a painful inflammation of the lining of the mouth and throat. This makes eating or swallowing difficult. In the digestive tract, this can lead to nausea, cramping, and diarrhea.
2. Surgery Pain
Surgery is often prescribed to remove tumors but it does come with post-operative pain that can require a long recovery time.
· Acute Surgical Pain: Immediately after surgery acute pain at the surgical site can arise for patients, which can last for weeks. Pain from the incision, tissue damage, or any complications like infection can occur.
· Phantom Pain: For those who undergo amputation (breast cancer mastectomy or limb amputation), phantom pain can develop. This pain occurs when the brain continues to send pain signals to nerves in an area that has been removed.
Chronic Post-Surgical Pain: Patients can experience long-term pain after surgery due to nerve damage. Nerves near the tumor can cause pain that persists months or even years after a surgical procedure.
3. Radiation Pain
Radiation therapy targets and destroys cancer cells via high-energy beams. The beam can also affect surrounding healthy tissues resulting in painful side effects.
Fibrosis and Tissue Damage: Radiation can cause fibrosis or the hardening of tissue leading to chronic pain in the treated area. For example, radiation near joints can cause long-term stiffness.
Radiation Burns: Skin irritation from redness to blistering and peeling can occur with radiation therapy. The burns can be painful and take time to resolve itself.
Bone Pain: When radiation targets bone cancers or metastases, this can lead to bone pain as radiation can affect healthy bone tissue. It’s common for cancers like breast, prostate, or lung cancers that spread to the bone to cause pain and radiation can add to this as well.
4. Manage the Pain
There are many ways to manage pain to maintain or improve the quality of life for patients. Many use medications like over-the-counter pain relievers like acetaminophen or prescription opioids. However, these options have significant downsides, especially when they are used for long-term chronic pain. One of the major issues is the risk of dependence, even addiction, or, for example, even liver failure from taking too much acetaminophen. So they, too, can come with significant side effects from nausea to dizziness and beyond.
Integrative therapies represent a good alternative for pain management without the negative side effects of prescription drugs. Techniques like acupuncture and alternative therapies represent a couple of ways patients can consider. Stay tuned for our next blog which goes into more detail of a wider selection of alternative therapies.
Less Pain in Store
Pain does not have to dominate your cancer journey when it comes to your therapies. Even if you are undergoing conventional treatments, there are ways to alleviate them without turning to medications. If you are looking for more alternatives, talk to our team at Dayspring Cancer Clinic who has been helping patients navigate cancer with minimal pain for over 10 years. Schedule a consultation with our licensed naturopathic MD, Dr. Andrew Dickens by calling 480-699-7400 today or visit us at https://www.dayspringcancerclinic.com/.