Originally Posted by Dew58

I found this article to be very informative on the subject of how chronic pain effects the brain;specifically,how the brain adapts in various situations.

My short term memory is gone. I sometimes lose my words. I find it difficult to focus and complete sentences and tasks, etc. How has chronic pain effected your brain function? Is it the RSD ,the chronic pain,or pain medications that change the brain's gray matter? Could it be a combination of the above stated?



I think that's probably standard. They should be able to tell on me because I've also had many brain MRI's. I also have a very deformed spine and bones and other problems. Not only that, but I think chronic pain makes people also "pain sensitive" in other areas. It never used to hurt to get needles in my gums at a dentists, for example, and now it nearly sends me through the roof.

I have always refused to take pain killers though, feeling that they only led to addictions. Sometimes at night I do take them but mostly take just anti-spasm drugs to stop the neurological pain in the toes.

I always felt that any drug, including even marijuana, can eventually make the brain lazy when it comes to dealing with either pain or depression, and soon it becomes so dependent on those drugs that it no longer remembers how to stop the pain on its own which is why people end up needing more and more pain killers all the time yet still suffer from the same amount of pain.

Those I know who are on marijuana, for example, no longer no how to be happy without using the drug. It's like their brains have forgotten how to be happy so most suffer from depression and find that they need it all the time -- recreational use they call it, even when it ends up being three times a day.

But I do think that chronic pain does interfere markedly with brain function in that it does prevent a person from focusing most definitely, not just because of the pain but because people suffering from pain are always wondering how much worse it will get and where else it will travel and when they will die. Although I think I handle it well, those thoughts are always there.

But I don't like the idea much of taking any sort of pill for chronic pain, really. It reminds me of something I read on the Internet awhile back where they were working with drugs so that cattle wouldn't be terrified out of their wits or feel pain when they went to slaughter. In other words, the pain isn't gone; the brain just can't register it. It become robotic.

Some people think of pain as something extremely hellish, but in a sense I think of it as a gift because it always lets the user know the degree he's at and whether his condition is getting worse. If he takes pills to prevent the pain from registering in his brain he is too likely to harm himself more, thinking he is well. That's my 2 cents worth anyway.