Blocking Inflammation May Lead To Chronic Pain

Above is the headline of an article from Neuroscience News published on May 11, 2022. This article, as well as several more in other publications, reports on a study published in Science Translational Medicine on May 13, 2022. The study showed that using anti-inflammatory medications for acute pain may actually cause the problem to get worse and lead to chronic pain.

The Science Translational Medicine study stated, "...clinical data showed that the use of anti-inflammatory drugs was associated with increased risk of persistent pain, suggesting that anti-inflammatory treatments might have negative effects on pain duration."

The article in Neuroscience News begins by clearly explaining that "Using anti-inflammatory drugs and steroids to relieve pain could increase the chances of developing chronic pain, according to researchers from McGill University and colleagues in Italy." The article quotes Jeffrey Mogil, a Professor in the Department of Psychology at McGill University and E. P. Taylor Chair in Pain Studies, "For many decades it's been standard medical practice to treat pain with anti-inflammatory drugs. But we found that this short-term fix could lead to longer-term problems."

The study suggests that inflammation, a normal response to injury, is needed to create healing. Blocking the inflammation can actually prevent the normal healing and turn a short-term problem into a long-term chronic issue. Professor Mogil explains, "Neutrophils dominate the early stages of inflammation and set the stage for repair of tissue damage. Inflammation occurs for a reason, and it looks like it's dangerous to interfere with it."

The study found that taking anti-inflammatory drugs block neutrophils which are white blood cells that help the body begin the healing process. The study looked at 98 people who were suffering with lower back pain. The researchers observed that the patients whose back pain eventually went away had significantly more neutrophils in their blood compared to those who continued to suffer with the pain.

In noting how huge a shift this new information is from common medical practice, Dr. Thomas Buchheit, director of the regenerative pain therapies program at Duke, had a different view. "People overuse the term 'paradigm shift', but this is absolutely a paradigm shift." He added, "There is this unspoken rule: If it hurts, take an anti-inflammatory, and if it still hurts, put a steroid on it." But based on this new study Dr. Buchheit now suggests "... we have to think of healing and not suppression of inflammation."

Dr. Selina Sigafoose-Jackson, president of the International Chiropractors Association and a practicing chiropractor in York, Pennsylvania responded to the study by stating, "This new study confirms that the body's normal processes should not be interfered with. Healing best occurs when there is a removal of interference to the body's own natural healing processes. The chiropractic approach has always been to remove any nerve system interference caused by subluxations, thus allowing the body to heal itself. This approach has been clinically shown to be more effective and safer than the use of medications."