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Hello Norway! I need an emoji to smile welcome!

Population 5 million – therefore data on pain can be obtained

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534 readers on these pages from Norway in the four years since 2012 got me curious.

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Norway Institute of Public Health is charged to prioritize healthcare for pain.

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Impressive! Very smart.

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“Chronic pain affects about 30 per cent of the adult Norwegian population.”

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In Denmark, “chronic pain patients had four to five times 

more in-patient days in hospital than the general population.”

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Cosmetic breast implants – one in five have nerve pain for life.

Implants must be replaced every 10 to 15 years.

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Surprise note from Irish physician on Norway- see below.

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Pain is the most common reason people see a physician. Pain is the most common cause of long term sick leave and disability in Norway, and likely in every first world country. Without doubt every investment in returning people to productive health relieves the burden on the entire country.

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The most common method of treatment is analgesic drugs, and, I would add, the most cost effective.

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Pain is more common in females than males. Cosmetic breast surgery is the most common gift to girls for high school graduation in America. It was of interest to find Norway’s statistics on that:

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In a Norwegian study of young, healthy women who had cosmetic breast surgery, 13 per cent reported spontaneous pain and 20 per cent reported pain when touched one year after surgery (23).” Ahhhh, but implants are a lifetime commitment and depending on style, must be replaced every 10 to 15 years.  Is pain compounded with each overlapping surgery? Scarring? Use of arms? What further issues arise once these women require breast cancer treatment? We know that after breast cancer treatment, chronic neuropathic pain affects between 20% and 50% of women. Obesity has been linked to chronic neuropathic pain developing after breast cancer surgery.

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. 13 per cent had pain after surgery

20 per cent one year later

7 per cent more than they did immediately following surgery –

Is risk compounded when replaced every 10 to 15 years for the next 70 years?

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One in five, 20 per cent with chronic lifelong nerve pain!

Insanity

How can they know? Show them prior to surgery.

 Informed consent: view a video interview of girls who developed nerve pain.

Can it be prevented? Or treat early?

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This is neuropathic pain, the hardest to treat. Miserable.

Light touch elicits intense pain.

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We all routinely underestimate risk of surgery. For true informed consent, it would be essential to show a video interview of girls with postoperative neuropathic pain, explaining the financial cost of chronic neuropathic pain the rest of their lives, how it affects use of the arms and ability to work, how many times they must see an MD every year for pills, how it may get worse over time, what type of pills are required – this educates the surgeons too on how to diagnose and treat nerve pain with sequellae of depression, anxiety, insomnia, and how it affects everyone in their family. Everyone suffers. Many are disabled and agitated by this intense nerve pain.

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How does stress and fear affect risk of cancer and other serious medical diseases?

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We know with rodents, from John Liebeskind’s research with an Israeli team at UCLA in the mid 70’s, pain profoundly increases spread of cancer resulting in quicker death from metastases. Pain kills. He lectured nationwide on this. I posted on his message just weeks ago, December 27. “Pain kills. A malefic force.”  “…pain can accelerate the growth of tumors and increase mortality after tumor challenge.”

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John C. Liebeskind, 1935 – 1997, distinguished scholar and researcher, past president of the American Pain Society, had the radical idea that pain can affect your health.

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Twenty percent! Girls don’t know. How could they?

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Does cosmetic breast enlargement at such young age

increase

potential risk of  tumorigenesis, invasiveness, metastasis?

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Trauma (surgery) activates microglia lifelong. Glia never return to baseline.

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Microglia produce inflammatory cytokines –  inflammation.

Inflammation underlies almost all known disease.

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Does breast surgery, any surgery, increase risk of other known disease?

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What does inflammation do to endometriosis and autoimmune risks in this population?

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These are purely speculative thoughts. We cannot know until it is studied longitudinally and prospectively – if ever. Large breasts are very trendy. Obesity is very common; alas it is also pro-inflammatory.

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Postsurgical sequaellae can be extremely challenging. I will try to post two case reports in the near future. They are complex, enlightening, tangled, difficult to diagnose, post-surgical cases. The senior chief of surgery at Mayo Clinic had only seen two prior cases like it in this man who had laparoscopic prostate surgery many years before. Surgical sequaellae cannot be predicted. Large scale surgery in girls for cosmetic reasons have unexpected consequences. What is their cost decades from now?

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Norway Institute of Public Health has very nice data on drugs used, graphed vs time for men and women.  

Chronic pain in children and adolescents

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The incidence of chronic pain in children and adolescents is poorly mapped in Norway, but the consumption of analgesics and figures from other countries suggest that chronic pain is also common in adolescence (8). In the Health Interview Survey of 2005, parents reported that 6 per cent of children aged 6-10 years and 12 per cent of adolescents aged 11-15 years had chronic pain symptoms.

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A study of 12-15 year olds in South and North Trøndelag shows that 17 per cent suffered regularly from headaches, abdominal pain, back pain or pain in arms / legs (9). Consumption of analgesic drugs among Norwegian 15-16 year olds is high and has risen considerably since 2001 (10).

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Treatment

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Pain is probably the most common reason for patients to seek health care (26). A Swedish study found that 28 per cent of patients in general practice had one or more medically-defined pain conditions (27) – (my patients have at least 3 or 4). Corresponding figures are found in Denmark (28), where it has also been shown that chronic pain patients had four to five times more in-patient days in hospital than the general population (29). Corresponding figures for Norwegian conditions are unavailable.

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Irish physician comments on Norway

just minutes before writing about Norway! sweet coincidence. He posted on a case report I wrote in 2010 on Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) and low dose naltrexone, (LDN).

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Dr Edmond O`Flaherty

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