MidSouth Pain Treatment Center loves to celebrate our patients; celebrate our patients’ lives, our patients’ recoveries, and most of all our patients’ differences. March 8, is International Women’s Day, and the providers of MidSouth Pain Treatment Center will be honoring all of the wonderful women in our practice and beyond. In recognition of this special day, we are bringing to light a fact that may surprise you. Men and women feel pain and process pain very differently. Evidence of this difference goes as far back as medical literature from 400 B.C. in Ancient Greece. If there is so much history behind this phenomenon, why isn’t this understanding universal?
For one thing, as recent as 1977 the Food and Drug Administration excluded women from clinical drug trials for fear of the liability associated with any of the selected women being/becoming pregnant. So, many of the pain management drugs on the market were accidentally tailored to men’s bodies and pain tolerances. While this practice has since been reversed, there is still a long way to go.
So why do men and women experience pain so differently? Women have menstrual cycles and bear children. This alone, as anyone woman can attest, can lead to a laundry list of painful ailments ranging from severe menstrual headaches, endometriosis, and chronic low back pain, often a result of pregnancy-related injuries and weight/stress on the lumbar spine. In fact, it may be due to these reproductive differences that women’s brains are predisposed to experience pain more subjectively, and severely. It is a proven fact that in an experience of pain, a woman’s brain produces fewer endorphins than men.
In regards to gender neutral pain, more women suffer from chronic conditions than their male counterparts ranging from pelvic pain, headaches, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, jaw pain, fibromyalgia, and chronic regional pain syndrome. In addition, much of this chronic pain goes undiagnosed and untreated perhaps as a result of the fast-paced lives of today’s modern, multitasking woman. Unlike the medications of the 70’s and early 80’s, there are interventional therapies available specific to women’s needs. The key to interventional therapies is to treat pain with the least impact on the life and lifestyle of the patient, which is a perfect fit for a mom who is constantly on the go.
In closing, please join MidSouth Pain Treatment Center in celebrating our female loved ones and friends. March 8th is all about WOMEN! Ladies, celebrate yourselves and your differences. If you are one of the millions of women suffering from chronic pain, know that there are many treatment options available that can help YOU, and it is best to see a pain management specialist for a highly specialized multi-modal approach to managing your pain. The providers at MidSouth Pain understand that pain and pain management is not a “one size fits all.” No woman should accept a life with chronic pain.
MidSouth Pain Treatment Center is highly recognized as a professional leader for interventional treatments in pain management. The highly trained and compassionate staff utilizes state-of-the-art equipment and innovative techniques in the treatment of all types of chronic pain as well as acute shingles pain and migraine headache pain. We have locations in Tennessee and Mississippi, including two surgery centers, conveniently located to serve the Mid-South area and beyond.
Click here to request a consultation today or if you would like to discuss more of this, contact us today to find a Midsouth Pain Treatment Center branch near you in Tennessee or Mississippi.
Click here to view MidSouth Pain Treatment Center’s website.
