Author: Charles Frank

Hyperalgesia: Causes, Symptoms, Treatment, and More

Hyperalgesia is a symptom where you feel pain in situations where feeling it is normal, but the pain is much more severe. This can happen commonly with burns and many other injuries and conditions. It’s often treatable, with many possible treatment methods and approaches. Hyperalgesia is a symptom that causes unusually severe pain in situations where feeling pain is normal, but the pain is much more severe than it should be. This condition happens because of disruptions or changes in how your nervous system processes pain. Hyperalgesia is an issue that can happen with many conditions and circumstances.

Treatment of hyperalgesia can be clinically challenging, and finding an effective drug or drug combination for a specific person may require trial and error. The use of a transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation device may also alleviate hyperalgesia. ‌The symptoms of opioid-induced hyperalgesia depend on the dose of opioids you take.

1. If a healthcare provider diagnoses you with hyperalgesia, they can offer suggestions and guidance on what you can do to manage this problem at home.
2. Pain is a normal part of how your body operates, telling you that something is wrong and you need to act to stop it.
3. If you still have extreme pain, talk to your doctor to lower or switch your opioid dose.
4. The condition is thought to be the result of an allergy or inflammatory response.
5. Your doctor will immediately suspect opioid-induced hyperalgesia if you experience extreme pain after increasing your opioid dose.
6. Treatment of hyperalgesia can be clinically challenging, and finding an effective drug or drug combination for a specific person may require trial and error.

Amplification in the spinal cord may be another way of producing hyperalgesia. Hyperalgesia can be experienced in focal, discrete areas, or as a more diffuse, body-wide form. Conditioning studies have established that it is possible to experience a learned hyperalgesia of the latter, diffuse form. Tolerance is when your body gets used to these medications and develops a kind of immunity to them, meaning they lose their effectiveness.

What Is a Pain Management Contract?

If a healthcare provider diagnoses you with hyperalgesia, they can offer suggestions and guidance on what you can do to manage this problem at home. Visceral (pronounced “viss-er-al”) hyperalgesia is a form of deep pain that affects organs and structures deeper inside of your body. The pain can also cause referred pain in nearby areas, especially when the problem affects an organ or area with few or no nerves inside it that can detect pain. Referred pain is when you feel pain near the site of the actual problem, and referred hyperalgesia means that this pain is more intense. It happens because the area where you feel the pain shares nerve connections with the area that actually has the problem. But with opioid-induced hyperalgesia, increasing the opioid dose will further increase your pain.

When pain is severe or lasts for long periods, it changes the way your nervous system handles pain signals. Experts don’t know exactly how or why OIH happens, but it’s one of the key reasons why experts recommend against long-term use of opioid medications. When a person develops this form of hyperalgesia, providers will usually try to lower the dose of the medication responsible and then stop it entirely.

Some causes of hyperalgesia, especially sunburns or first- and second-degree burns, are very common and will get better as the burn heals. First-degree burns usually don’t need treatment by a healthcare provider, but second-degree burns often need care. You should also see a healthcare provider for burns that affect your head, face or genitals. The chief symptom of hyperalgesia is increased pain sensitivity (without new injury, damage to an existing injury, or worsening of a medical condition).

Hyperalgesia

Research has shown that NMDA receptors are responsible for increasing your sensitivity to pain. NMDA receptor antagonists are drugs that block your pain receptors, suppress your pain response, and reduce your pain. Ketamine and methadone are common NMDA receptor antagonists that are useful for treating hyperalgesia. Hyperalgesia develops when immune-system cells interact with the peripheral nervous system, releasing pain-producing chemicals. The condition is thought to be the result of an allergy or inflammatory response.

If you have this condition, your body overreacts to painful stimuli, making you feel increased pain. You can develop hyperalgesia if you use opioid drugs or injure a body part. Hyperalgesia means you feel pain under circumstances where pain should happen, but the pain is much worse than expected.

This refers to an increased pain response caused by an injury to your tissues or nerves. The pain they feel is much worse because of problems with how their body processes pain. If you or someone close to you has severe pain, especially pain that seems disproportionately severe, the safest and best move is to seek medical attention. Ignoring severe pain can lead to more serious problems, either with how your body processes pain or with the condition causing the pain in the first place. Pain is a normal part of how your body operates, telling you that something is wrong and you need to act to stop it.

They may conduct a physical examination to look for recent injuries or underlying diseases. Your doctor will immediately suspect opioid-induced hyperalgesia if you experience extreme pain after increasing your opioid dose. With hyperalgesia, things that normally cause pain feel more painful than usual.

How is hyperalgesia treated?

This is a gradual process because stopping opioid medications suddenly can cause withdrawal and other dangerous side effects. At the same time, providers will also try to find other ways to manage your pain, helping you stay as comfortable as possible without relying on opioid medications. Hyperalgesia and allodynia are related issues that are very similar, but there’s one key difference. With hyperalgesia, you feel more pain in response to things that are supposed to hurt. With allodynia, you feel pain in response to things that shouldn’t hurt. There are multiple ways that hyperalgesia can happen, and it’s also a symptom of several different conditions.

What Is Pain?

It’s normal to feel pain after a burn, but hyperalgesia causes your nervous system to overreact in response to something painful. People with hyperalgesia experience excruciating pain even when an injury or medical condition has not worsened. This pain may worsen over time and spread to other parts of the body, evolving into a new or distinct type of pain.

Hyperalgesia and Sensitization

When a person feels pain, they usually react automatically, trying to stop whatever’s causing the pain. Without the ability to feel pain, people would have no way to tell when to act to protect themselves from even worse injuries. ‌The treatment method may vary among people based on your body’s response to an individual opioid.

You may have opioid medication side effects such as dizziness, drowsiness, vomiting, constipation, itchy skin, dry mouth, or respiratory depression. Because there is no standard method for detecting hyperalgesia, diagnosis can be difficult. Typically, your doctor will assess your symptoms, medical history, and medications.