Acupuncture has also been found to be an effective and safe treatment in reducing pain and improving quality of life in chronic pain including chronic pelvic pain syndrome.Transcranial magnetic stimulation for reduction of chronic pain is not supported by high quality evidence, and the demonstrated effects are small and short-term.Spa therapy could potentially improve pain in patients with chronic lower back pain, but more studies are needed to provide stronger evidence of this.While some studies have investigated the efficacy of St Johns Wort or nutmeg for treating neuropathic (nerve) pain, their findings have raised serious concerns about the accuracy of their results.Kinesio Tape has not been shown to be effective in managing chronic non-specific low-back pain.Myofascial release has been used in some cases of fibromyalgia, chronic low back pain, and tennis elbow but there is not enough evidence to support this as method of treatment. Epidemiology
Chronic pain varies in different countries affecting anywhere from 8% to 55.2% of the population. It affects women at a higher rate than men, and chronic pain uses a large amount of healthcare resources around the globe.A large-scale telephone survey of 15 European countries and Israel found that 19% of respondents over 18 years of age had suffered pain for more than 6 months, including the last month, and more than twice in the last week, with pain intensity of 5 or more for the last episode, on a scale of 1 (no pain) to 10 (worst imaginable). 4839 of these respondents with chronic pain were interviewed in-depth.
Self-esteem, often low in people with chronic pain, also shows improvement once pain has resolved.It has been suggested that catastrophizing might play a role in the experience of pain. Pain catastrophizing is the tendency to describe a pain experience in more exaggerated terms than the average person, to think a great deal more about the pain when it occurs, or to feel more helpless about the experience. People who score highly on measures of catastrophization are likely to rate a pain experience as more intense than those who score low on such measures. It is often reasoned that the tendency to catastrophize causes the person to experience the pain as more intense. One suggestion is that catastrophizing influences pain perception through altering attention and anticipation, and heightening emotional responses to pain. However, at least some aspects of catastrophization may be the product of an intense pain experience, rather than its cause. That is, the more intense the pain feels to the person, the more likely they are to have thoughts about it that fit the definition of catastrophization. Comorbidity with trauma
Individuals with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have a high comorbidity with chronic pain. Patients with both PTSD and chronic pain report higher severity of pain than those who do not have a PTSD comorbidity. Effect on cognition
Chronic pains impact on cognition is an under-researched area, but several tentative conclusions have been published. Most people with chronic pain complain of cognitive impairment, such as forgetfulness, difficulty with attention, and difficulty completing tasks.