New studies shows that chronic pain in women is due to smoking
A new study made in the university of Kentucky showed that smoking women in Kentucky have increased risks of experiencing chronic musculoskeletal pain, as surveys showed that 6,000 women over 18 have smoking habit and symptoms of chronic pain, the study showed that women who smoke or had smoked in the past and now is quitted, has an increased risk of having one chronic pain syndrome at least, these syndrome are fibromyalgia, sciatica, chronic neck pain, chronic back pain, joint pain, chronic head pain, nerve problems, and pain all over the body.
The risk increase percentage for former smoker is 20% according to the study, and increases in women who occasionally smoke to 68% and the percentage of risk for regular smoker is stunning as it crosses the 100% to be 104%.
A researcher in the team was wondering if it is really that smoking cause chronic pain or women now are addicted to smokes as a coping mechanism for experiencing chronic pain, the acute pain works in a way that perhaps female smokers have acute pain that develops into chronic pain due to damage that happened in their normal protection and mechanisms because of smoking, this explains why the acute pain is called “protective response”.
As a result Dr. Leslie Crofford, director of the Center for the Advancement of Women’s Health and co-author of the study said that it is important to find the relation between smoking, quitting smoking, , psychopathology, and the control of chronic pain.
The studies also showed that there is a relation concerns the response to the dose between the classification of the smoker and chronic pain as the patients who have these chronic pain have a great chance of getting benefits out of stop smoking and any suggested additional treatment to their pain, also there is a large possibility that good chronic pain treatment could manage to help smokers in quitting smokes, but more researches are still required.
This study was done by the Kentucky Women’s Health Registry, the center says that the subscription in the center is available for women ages 18-89, the center is open for inquires to an individual’s health, demographic, and socioeconomic status, also the center states that up until this moment almost 15,000 Kentucky women joined the center but the center aims to have 25,000 member in the future.
Tags: chronic pain, smoking, women