Related Programs

The Effect of Poor Sleep on Health Cancer and Cancer Treatment: Can it Affect Sleep? The Link Between Sleep and Depression Effects of Menopause on Sleep Discussing Sleep Problems With Your Doctor When Trauma Strikes and Sleep is Lost

Pain Living with Pain

The Impact of Pain on Sleep

Summary & Participants

Sleeping well can refresh your body and mind, but it's tough to do when you're in pain. Not only is the pain itself a problem, but sometimes pain medications can disturb sleep. Learn why pain worsens sleep problems and what you can do about it.

Medically Reviewed On: February 11, 2006

Webcast Transcript

ANNOUNCER: It seems getting a good night's sleep isn't always as easy as it sounds. But it's particularly difficult when someone's in pain.

ELLEN MILLER, MD: Pain always feels worse at night. You may be able to relax at that time more when you go to sleep and then that's when you feel the pain the most.

JAMES O'BRIEN, MD: If someone is experiencing pain during the day, their body is under stress. And stress in individuals affects their sleep and activity during the course of the day by virtue of excessive amount of hormones, particularly adrenaline. So if you're going to sleep, experiencing some pain in the day and you're having adrenaline in your system, that could make it more difficult for you to get the sleep or to maintain a depth of sleep that you would benefit by.

ANNOUNCER: And of course pain comes in all shapes and sizes.

JAMES O'BRIEN, MD: Acute pain is the sudden development of discomfort. Whether it be surgically related, whether it be to deal with a tooth that needs repair, whether it be related to an accident that occurs. And oftentimes when you try to go to sleep at night, you are aware perceptually of these discomforts, which are unusual. Pain is clearly the nemesis of getting good sleep.

ANNOUNCER: While acute pain will often subside as the condition improves, chronic pain is a different story.

ELLEN MILLER, MD: Chronic pain, on the other hand, is not necessarily as sharp as the acute pain. It's more like a dull, constant pain and it just doesn't ever seem to go away. And we see this more with rheumatoid arthritis or osteoarthritis.

ANNOUNCER: Both types of pain can be the culprit, robbing you of a restful night in lots of different ways.

JAMES O'BRIEN, MD: It can make it more difficult for us to initiate sleep, making it longer for us to fall asleep and beginning to train us that falling asleep is not necessarily an easy thing for us to do, even though for years it's always been taken for granted.

The other problem that sleep is affected by in terms of pain is the interruption of sleep while we are asleep. So we may be waking up at night unaware that pain is the cause, but we just happen to roll on our wrist or elbow or shoulder before we rolled back and awakened, unaware of why we are awake. And that kind of habit literally affects and habituates an individual to expect that sleep will be disrupted.

ANNOUNCER: Adding to the problem of disturbed sleep may be the very medications that people take to relieve certain types of pain, such as codeine, demerol, morphine and steroids. Others may even contain caffeine.

ELLEN MILLER, MD: Sometimes medications for migraine headaches may contain caffeine, or sometimes some other pain medications are combination medications that have several things in it and one of the ingredients is caffeine, the caffeine can keep us awake.

Page 1 of 2 Next Page >>