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The Painful Truth
About IBD
An overseas survey has revealed the extent to which pain dominates
the lives of some people with Inflammatory Bowel Disease. The
key finding was that two thirds of the 5,000 studies, experienced
abdominal pain, joint pain or back pain and over half reported
that they experienced pain even while their symptoms were in
remission.
The study aimed to find out more about the range of symptoms
experienced by patients with Ulcerative Colitis and Crohns' and,
in particular, at understanding more about how pain affects their
lives.
Around two thirds of the respondents were women. The figures
overall were similar for those with Crohn's and those with UC,
although slightly more men (60%) had UC. Respondents were asked
to rank five symptoms according to the impact they had on their
lives: urgency/diarrhea, incontinence, pain, tiredness, and weakness.
Urgency/diarrhea ranked highest for patients, both during flare-ups
and in remission. Pain was the next worst symptom during flare-ups
for both UC and Crohn's, followed by tiredness. In remission,
tiredness was more often reported, but pain remained significant.
In fact, the findings suggest that pain affected nearly 40% of
the patients in the survey on a constant or daily basis.
Sixty six per cent of respondents answered a question about the
type of pain they experienced. The majority (66%) experienced
abdominal pain, while 38% had joint pain and 31% had back pain.
Asked how the abdominal pain felt, 51% described it as aching,
46% as stabbing, 39% as nauseating, 34% as deepseated, and 29%
as constant.
Sixty nine per cent said that their abdominal pain was usually
more than 5 on a scale of 1 to 10 and 61% said that their worst
experience of abdominal pain has been 9+ on the same scale.
The survey also looked at how doctors and medical professionals
responded. Just over 75% of patients who experienced pain had
discussed it with their GP and around 70% had discussed it with
their gastroenterologist. Encouragingly, the majority of health
professionals had responded sympathetically.
Sixty six per cent of patients were prescribed medication to
help with their pain, such as paracetamol, nurofen, anti-spasmodics
or tramadol. This also means, however, that 34% were not prescribed
pain relief and, significantly, 23% of those prescribed pain
relief said it wasn't effective. Around 40% had tried other methods
of relieving pain; in particular, relaxation, physiotherapy,
acupuncture, TENS machine, heat pads.
It is hoped that the findings would encourage further research.
It is noted that pain is one of the most debilitating and yet
largely hidden symptoms of IBD. When you hear someone describe
their IBD pain as 'worse than childbirth' and say that their
life is 'riddled with agony and the continual rushes to the toilet',
it reminds us all just how serious these illnesses are. People
try hard to get on with their family lives, jobs or education
despite their symptoms and they really do need everyone around
them to have a greater understanding and to offer support.
ENDS
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