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Symptoms of disease - psychogenic pain

A psychogenic pain - (phrenalgia) (Greek psych + aldos - pain; sin. neuralgia psychic) - a group of disorders, the dominant symptoms of which are a pain mental origin. This pain, arising as a result of trauma, and accompanied by a sense of anxiety or fear, often headaches, pain in the back, stomach, arising no apparent organic dysfunctions.

Psychogenic pain occur in the absence of any organic lesions, which would explain the severity of the pain and its associated functional disorders. On the formation of pain can influence the personality characteristics (anxiety, demonstrativeness, hypochondriacal, hypochondria), pledged the parents and the society of the installation, determine the attitude to pain; various emotional States (such as grief, joy, anger, resentment, guilt, etc.). In patients with psychogenic pain syndrome is observed displacement of conflicts on the level of the unconscious, the avoidance of the decision of problems on the type of care in disease.

Which diseases there is psychogenic pain

Psychogenic pain can be one of the many violations, characteristic for the somatoform disorders. Any chronic disease or illness, accompanied by pain, affects the emotions and behavior of the individual. For many people the pain associated with the notion of punishment and guilt. The pain often leads to the emergence of anxiety and tension, which themselves are reinforcing the perception of pain

The perception of pain is associated with early childhood experience of the person. Depending on the experience of the person are formed settings that define the attitude to pain. Pain and suffering are viewed as the opposite of joy and pleasure.

When pain and depression are common mechanisms of formation, associated with anhedonia - the inability to experience pleasure. So depression is one of the forms of mental disorders, is closely connected with the emergence of psychogenic pain. These violations can occur at the same time or one ahead of manifestations of another. In patients with clinically significant depression reduced the threshold of pain, and pain is a usual complaint in patients with primary depression. In patients with pain syndrome, caused by chronic somatic disease, often also develop depression. With psychodynamic position chronic pain is considered as external protective manifestation of depression, make it easier to mental impulses (guilt, shame, anguish, and unrealized aggressive tendencies, etc.) and protecting the patient from the more severe mental torment or suicide. The pain is often a result of the protective mechanism of displacement, typical for the hysterical conversion. In many cases, a combination of painful symptoms and depression is considered as masked depression, where at the forefront of pain syndrome or somatoform pain disorder.

The mechanism of occurrence of psychogenic pain.
Usually psychogenic pain occur as a result of changes of the functional state of the nervous system. This change occurs under the influence of stress-inducing factors, which by the influence of the nervous system change the status and functions of various organs and systems of the organism. Changes the tone of vessels, cardiac rhythm and breathing, the function of the gastro-intestinal tract and etc. Consequently, it may be the increase of oscillatory mobility of vessel, change of cerebral circulation, metabolic imbalance, etc. Increased intracranial pressure, which leads to tension in the structures of the brain that are sensitive to pain, irritation pain receptors, laid in the walls of blood vessels. In these States of the changed reactivity of the nervous system. As a result of this impulses, which usually do not cause jet shifts, become the Central apparatus of the brain threshold or suprathreshold and cause pain.

Some types of psychogenic pain:

1. A psychogenic headache.

Intensive, agonizing pain, often provoked by stress, psycho-social factors. Such pain occurs at the background of mental disorders (hysteria, hypochondria, obsessive-phobic syndrome, depression, etc.)

Psychogenic headache is called a group of symptoms, including headache mental tension, headache physical stress and headache in anxiety States and depression.

A psychogenic headache in most cases, causes resort to medical help only when it occurs daily, lasts for months or even years. Many of these patients there is a depression (feeling of hopelessness, tearfulness, insomnia, lack of appetite, constant depressed mood). They are difficult to describe their feelings, complaining of aching or oppressive headache, usually diffuse or localized in the occipital, temporal or the frontal area and almost always two-way. Characteristic for migraines simplex throbbing pain occurs rarely.

Emotional stress headache may arise from any person, but more often it occurs in people impressionable, sensitive, alarm, intellectually developed, empathy, emotional. It is necessary to understand the cause of headaches and eliminate a source of stress.
Reasons: Overstrain, fatigue and chronic fatigue; feelings of fear, worry, anxiety and fear of failure, low self-esteem, feelings of insecurity, and the psycho-emotional loads; problems in the relationship with the important people; the situation of rejection of individuality and the suppression of the individual; the physical and mental violence; divorces.

2. A psychogenic abdominal pain.

Psychogenic abdominal pain (from abdominalgia - pain in the abdomen) usually occur on the background of neurotic disorders in individuals with demonstrative radical. Often accompanied by neurotic gastro-intestinal disorders (spasm of the esophagus, irritable bowel syndrome, cardio spasm, dysphagia, anorexia, aerophagia, neurotic vomiting, stomachalgia, "intestinal crisis")

Reasons:
Psihotravmiruyuschie situation, stress, emotional tension, anxiety, depression, personality characteristics, leading to increase emotivity (ego-centricity, the desire to attract attention, doubt, anxiety, hypochondriacal, the instability of the psyche); conflict situations in the family and the team, fluctuations in self-esteem, breaks relations, etc.

Set the absence of dependence of the data from eating disorders. Pain is caused by a particular psycho-traumatic situation and depends on the emotional-affective factors. In the treatment of efficient the use of psychotherapy. A review of the popular Turkish game Gates of Olympus.

3. Psychogenic pain in the heart (cardialgia).

The main causes of pain in the heart, is a coronary heart disease, problems with the spine and caused by psychogenic status.

To identify the nature of the pain, it is important to differential diagnosis of these diseases. If from the point of view of a cardiologist and neurologist violations are detected, you can talk about psychogenic pain in the heart.

Manifestations of psychogenic pain may be different. As a rule, pain is more or less constant or recurring nature. In this case, actually, the question is not about the pain, which hurts when "serious" diseases, and on fixing the patients on their feelings, causing anxiety and worry, which they describe as pain. For example, «stabbing pain, which cannot be removed drugs», «throb», «heart stops and stops». When psychoautonomic syndrome, or "panic attacks", common version of the flow is cardio phobia - the fear of dying from a heart attack. On the background of anxiety and fear can form a variety of pain sensation (stitching, cutting). The duration of the pain varies from a few seconds up to several hours. In the case of chronic pain somatoform disorder the nature of the pain monotonous, its localization of one and the same - this point, steady, monotonous pain. Other symptoms practically not observed, vegetative disorders are not available.

Criteria for the determination of psychogenic pain:
the multiplicity and duration of the pain; lack of organic changes or mismatch of the identified changes complaints of the patient; temporal relationship between pain and conflict; the use of pain as a means of achieving a goal that cannot be achieved by other means; pain as a form of avoidance of undesirable activities.

4. Psychogenic pain in the back (dorsalgia)

Dorsalgia - pain in the back is a clinical syndrome caused by a variety of reasons. If you cannot find neurological damage and destruction of the spine it is about psychogenic pain.

Causes of psychogenic pain in the back.
Stresses, conflicts, depression, psychosis, overexertion of muscles of a back. Pain syndrome is usually not able to relieve until will not be resolved in household or another situation of conflict.

Which doctor should I contact if there is a psychogenic pain

• Neurologist
• Psychiatrist
• Psychologist

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Do you feel psychogenic hurts? You should be very careful approach to your health in general. People pay not enough attention to the symptoms of the disease and don't realize that these diseases can be critically dangerous. There are many diseases that in the beginning didn't manifest in our body, but in the end it turns out, unfortunately, it have already been treated too late. Every disease has its own specific features typical symptoms - called symptoms of the disease. Definition of symptoms is the first step in the diagnosis of diseases in general. You just need a few times a year to be screened by a doctor, not only to prevent a terrible disease, but also to maintain a healthy spirit in a body and the organism in general.

Pains by category

Pains by alphabet

Map of the symptoms and the types of pain is intended solely for educational purposes. We strongly recommend do NOT self-medicate; on all matters relating to the definition of the disease and ways of its treatment, contact your doctor. Md-tips is not responsible for the consequences of use information posted on the site.