FUTURE OF PAIN CONTROL

I have just returned from a facial pain update and have some thoughts as to the future of pain control. As I mentioned in one of my other blogs, there has been no new pain medication in the last 12 years. They have all been rearrangements of current medications and different dispersal systems. What I have learned at this update is that as our understanding of the source of pain becomes more clear, the ability to reduce the painwill also become more specific.

As we understand not just what nerve fibers and neurotransmitters are involved in regulation of pain, but the deeper more specific aspects of pain control is understood at the level of the gene. We are becoming more knowledgeable as to how the body controls its own pain as different genes express themselves at different times with different types of insults. The more we understand how pain is produced at the sub molecular level, the more we understand how we can possibly stop the pain.

Let me try to illustrate what I am talking about. Let's say you live in a community on a beach. One day a ship comes to the area of your beach and every morning at 3:00 a.m., it lets out a screeching noise that goes on for an hour. The ship is too far to shoot at with guns, is too far to throw rocks at it, is too far to scream at it, therefore the only choice we have is to somehow insulate yourself from the noise by putting earphones on or buying a house that is sound proof.

That is sort of a way painkillers are today. We do not stop the pain, all we try to do is to mask it or try to reduce the way it feels to us. But wonder if we could build a certain type of boat that will go across the water and in that boat, we could put a bomb or possibly a secret agent to be able to get over to the ship and the ship would greet it as another ship and then the bomb could be let off at the appropriate time or the agent can dismantle the screaming siren.

That would be a very specific way to eliminate the pain as we find the “boat” or what they call, “the carrier” to take specific medications to eliminate the pain. That is where the future is. They are also using this in cancer research and in treatment of cancer. The more specific our medications can be, the less side effects there will be and the more comfortable and more effective will be the pain control.