#48 - Sleep and Pain: When It Hurts So Bad

Sleep Unplugged with Dr. Chris Winter

Chronic pain is a disabling problem that could affect as many as 1 out of every 5 adult Americans. It is a costly and tragic collection of disorders that often has limited and disappointing treatment options. Could sleep be a central mediator of chronic pain? Could it be a pathway for treatment? In this episode we will:

• Contrast the relationship between pain causing disturbed sleep with the condition of disturbed sleep itself causing pain
• Examine study numbers showing the high incidence of disturbed sleep in patients with chronic pain
• Consider that while many patients with disturbed sleep have concurrent depression, a much higher cohort complains of disturbed sleep
• Revisit a 2006 study I highlighted in my first book that shows increased pain indices following relatively trivial reductions in total sleep and REM sleep
• Extend this concept as it relates to high incidence of chronic pain in military veterans with sleep disorders/disturbances
• View the relationship through the lens of a 2022 Harvard study confirming a relationship but stopping short of endorsing causation
• List ways in which sleep considerations could be utilized to improve pain conditions

Produced by: Maeve Winter
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• The Sleep Solution and The Rested Child

Thanks for listening and sleep well!