Sweet Dreams?

You have probably spent over 25% of your life sleeping. With that much of your life spent under the sheets, it makes sense that proper sleep and a good mattress can go a long way towards mitigating back pain and improving your health.

However, approximately two-thirds of patients with chronic back pain suffer from sleep disorders and a new study indicates that frequently interrupted sleep can make a person more susceptible to pain by altering the body's natural systems that regulate and control pain.

During the study, researchers tested the pain thresholds and pain inhibition of 32 women subjects. Those in a group that had been woken up eight times during the night showed an increase in spontaneous pain, while those in control groups who slept undisturbed did not, showing that disrupted sleep impairs natural pain control mechanisms that are thought to play a key role in the development, maintenance, and exacerbation of chronic pain.

“A sleeping disorder associated with chronic back pain should always be addressed as part of a multi-disciplinary, chronic pain treatment approach,” says Dr. Kessler. “As with any symptom of a chronic pain syndrome, the sleep disruption should not be treated in isolation without taking into account proper treatments for the chronic back pain problem that is part of the cause of the sleeping problem.”

In many cases, the right mattress can certainly help, and for those with chronic pain, getting continuous, undisturbed sleep is key to controlling the pain.

Labels: back pain, Low back pain, muscular strain, NYC, pain management, sleep, spine and sports medicine

Posted by Spine and Sports Medicine on 3:44 PM