Women’s Chronic Pain More Complex And More Severe

New research has found that chronic pain in women is more complex and harder to treat than chronic pain in men.

Asian Scientist (Oct. 30, 2013) – New research from the University of Adelaide has found that chronic pain in women is more complex and harder to treat than chronic pain in men.

The researchers have been studying why acute pain turns to chronic pain (experienced for at least three months consecutively) in some people and why chronic pain is more prevalent in women than in men.

Study leader Dr Mark Hutchinson says laboratory studies have shown for the first time that the brain’s immune cells, known as glial cells, contribute to differences in pain between the sexes.

“There are fundamental differences in the experience of pain between females and males,” says Dr Hutchinson.

According to Dr Hutchinson, although the initial cause of pain is similar, chronic pain in women is more complex and difficult to treat than in men because of differences in the mechanisms at work in the brain.

“Female and male structures in the brain are different but that doesn’t explain women’s higher rate of pain. There are multiple different pain systems in females and males,” he says.

Dr Hutchinson says it’s already known that some drugs for inflammatory bowel disease only work on women and not on men, indicating the need for more tailored treatments.

“Better understanding female chronic pain is extremely important to treatment. We’re hoping our research will lead to the development of sex-targeted drugs that will provide more effective pain relief,” he says.

The findings suggest that men and women should be prescribed medications and treated for pain differently according to their gender.

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Source: University of Adelaide. Image: Liz Henry/Flickr/CC.
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