Everyday someone dies from drug use or they experience their first high. Within that first encounter you are dancing with the devil and can sell your soul to something so powerful with so little benefit. However, it is the case that oftentimes one does not have a choice but to take that chance. One may need to take medication that is highly addictive to be free of pain. In this case, opioids are known as narcotics which are prescribed by doctors to treat this ongoing pain or severe pain. As of 2021, about 21 to 29 percent of patients prescribed opioids for chronic pain misuse them (CDC 2019). This is how addiction begins. When it does commence, between 8 to 12 percent of people develop an opioid use disorder (CDC 2019) and you guessed it—chronic pain is the reason why. Not only can maladies cause chronic pain but so can multisensory sensitivity due to the visceral and visual cortex mechanism which can lead to opioid misuse. Lastly, once the opioids begin to fade away into the distance then heroin comes to the rescue to relieve the pain and discomfort (CDC 2019).
In the reading, “The temporal dynamics of emotion dysregulation in prescription opioid misuse” by Justin Hudak, the compromise capacity to regulate negative and positive emotions is of interest. The first hypothesis is that opioid misusers will have difficulties regulating positive and negative emotions whereas the alternative is that opioid non-misusers will not have difficulties regulating positive and negative emotions. I’m sure you can assume which hypothesis was deemed as true. That’s right, opioid misusers were shown to have a decrease in galvanic skin responses and heart rate which in turn caused a decrease in negative emotions or emotion regulation tasks. The opposite occurred within misusers of opioids such as increase in galvanic skin cell responses and heart rate during emotion regulation tasks and negative emotions. Opioid use in a negative manner within people who suffer from chronic pain is associated with emotion dysregulation. This article brings awareness to the issues resulting from chronic pain not only from the physical discomfort, but the mental and emotional discomfort following the relief option.
In another reading, “Visual and Visceral Hypersensitivity” by Matthew J. Kmiecik focuses on multisensory hypersensitivity. Multisensory hypersensitivity is the persistent discomfort across sensory modalities (Kmiecik 23). In turn, it poses a risk factor for chronic pain. During this experiment, the observation of women with menstrual pain are at risk for developing chronic pain. Within the experiment, Kmiecik discovers while using a scalp EEG, the increase of brightness intensities of the checkerboard stimulus increased cortical excitation across the scalp, but more importantly at the occipital site. He also came to find the bladder pain report revealed that visual discomfort results from increasing brightness intensities resulting cortical excitation. This in turn supported the hypothesis that there is a direct correlation that multisensory hypersensitivity surrounds visceral sensation. That is not all, it does not mean that multisensory hypersensitivity is driven by primary visual cortex hyperexcitability as Kmiecik states, but instead the mechanisms associated in the cortex are liable for intensifying signals to the primary sensory cortex in this case, visual cortex being observed. He also concluded that participants with greater bladder pain rated the visual stimulation very unpleasant consideration of the menstrual cycle. The findings bring about that different sensory modalities are being impacted: visceral and visual. This finding bladder pain also is a marker for multisensory hypersensitivity. All in all, the symptoms at large for multisensory hypersensitivity and chronic pain are posed at a high vulnerability rate.
Both of these readings relate to each other not only because they speak about chronic pain, but how it affects the behavior of users and the body of the person suffering. Chronic pain comes in many different forms ranging from migraines to even cancer. The pain is indefinite and the medications are infinite. Implications from the readings presented show that high severity of chronic pain can lead to 1. possible addiction from medically prescribed opioids to reduce pain and 2. visceral and visual hypersensitivity from chronic pelvic pain can occur from mechanisms in the cortex and 3. vulnerability. Pain varies from person to person but the methods to treat such an issue remains the same. The prescribing of opioids for chronic pain has decreased, but patients prescribed opioids are on long term plans and become addicted. When addiction comes to mind unconsciously the brain creates an image of someone choosing to pick their poison. It creates a story of “they were trying to fit in” or “they wanted to have fun and get high”, but never once has one actually thought, “wow maybe they are in trouble because of health issues?” or “they are in a lot of pain”. I’m sure you are sitting there feeling some type of guilt if you automatically assumed or thought someone chose to be an addict due to health related issues. Addiction is not often talked about in today’s world since it is just so common or kept in secret. People often touch on the issue once a loved one or friend is six feet under. To bring awareness to chronic pain and its side effects is very important in today’s realm because the number of losses outweighs the number of victories. Vulnerability is the quality or state of being exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally per Webster’s Dictionary. A person suffering with chronic pain becomes vulnerable in the sense of wanting the pain to subside. Everything is then put on the line once the first pill is swallowed in hopes for a better tomorrow. Alternatives must be put into place to treat chronic pain to decrease the disruptions of life.
References
CDC/NCHS, National Vital Statistics System, Mortality. CDC WONDER, Atlanta, GA: US Department of Health and Human Services, CDC; 2019. https://wonder.cdc.gov.
Kmiecik, M. J., Tu, F. F., Silton, R. L., Dillane, K. E., Roth, G. E., Harte, S. E., & Hellman, K. M. (2021). Cortical Mechanisms of Visual Hypersensitivity in Women at Risk for Chronic Pelvic Pain. medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences, 2020.12.03.20242032. https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.12.03.20242032
Justin Hudak, Kort C. Prince, William R. Marchand, Yoshio Nakamura, Adam W. Hanley, Craig J. Bryan, Brett Froeliger, Eric L. Garland, The temporal dynamics of emotion dysregulation in prescription opioid misuse,Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry,Volume 104, 2021, 110024, ISSN 0278-5846, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pnpbp.2020.110024.
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