Cancer, in addition to its life-threatening aspect, also eliminates the quality of life with serious pain problems. Going to treatment to relieve cancer pain increases the patient’s quality of life and general body resistance, and increases compliance with cancer treatment. Cancer is one of the most feared health problems of our time.
Today, more and more types of cancer are no longer a feared situation, especially with early diagnosis and surgical treatment, drug therapy, radiation therapy or other methods. However, it still remains the main health problem that medicine fights.
What Effect Do Cancer Pain Relief Methods Have on Cancer Treatment?
Cancer; In addition to its life-threatening aspect, it is a condition that eliminates the quality of life with the serious pain problems it causes.
Unfortunately, pain in cancer patients is often not taken seriously enough and physicians dealing with the treatment of the disease itself do not resort to pain relief with effective approaches.
A misconception here is that relieving pain in cancer will complicate the follow-up of the course of the disease. However, all studies show that relieving the pain of a cancer patient does not have a negative effect on the course of the disease and the patient’s life expectancy.
In fact, as a result of the elimination of pain, increasing the quality of life; It shows that it has very positive contributions by increasing the patient’s compliance with cancer treatment and increasing the general body resistance.
How Do Cancer Pains Occur?
Pain in cancer occurs for various reasons. Sometimes the tumor itself presses on an organ, nerve, or bone, causing pain.
Sometimes, pain due to circulatory disorder may occur due to pressure on a vein. An important cause of pain in cancer is pain caused by treatment methods called chemotherapy, radiotherapy or surgical treatment.
Cancer Pain Relief Methods
DRUG THERAPY: Many types of cancer pain, whether due to the cancer itself or as a side effect of treatment methods, can be effectively treated with drug treatments and non-drug treatment methods. can be relieved. The most important reason why cancer patients do not receive effective and adequate pain treatment is that they cannot reach pain physicians who are experts in this field.
The first choice in the treatment of cancer pain is pain medication. These drugs should be used in a certain order and in accordance with the World Health Organization’s system called step therapy. According to the step system, first of all, weaker effective pain relievers are started to be used. Depending on the condition of the pain, stronger painkillers are given. An important point here is that the relationship between pain and the course of the disease is not always directly proportional. In other words, the fact that the patient has severe pain is not always a sign of progression of the disease.
NERVE BLOCKS: Non-drug treatment methods are used in patients whose drugs are insufficient to relieve pain or who cannot use these drugs for various reasons. Blocking the pain nerves is one of these methods. Just as the nerve of a decaying tooth is prevented from transmitting pain with root canal treatment, the pain nerve of the cancerous organ can be desensitized by applying various chemicals. Radiofrequency thermocoagulation methods can also be used for this purpose. This procedure is to prevent the transmission of pain by applying high frequency radio waves to the pain nerve.
MORPINE PUMP: Morphine pump is the most advanced method in relieving the pain of cancer patients. In this method, a thin catheter is inserted into the space where the nerves transmitting pain from the spinal cord are located.
Then the port or pump to which the drug will be applied is placed under the skin and the tip of the catheter is connected to it. With this method, it is possible to relieve the patient’s pain effectively by using a much lower dose of morphine or a morphine-like drug. Moreover, due to the minimization of the morphine dose used, patients avoid morphine-related side effects.
Cancer pain facts:
Cancer pain is a pain that can be relieved. In the reports of the World Health Organization, it is stated that 85-90% of all cancer pains are pain that can be controlled with various pain treatment methods.
Contrary to what many fear, morphine and morphine-like pain relievers are not addictive in cancer patients.
Although painkillers are the first choice in cancer pain, we have many other weapons that we use to fight pain when painkillers are not enough. MORE IS ALWAYS POSSIBLE to cut cancer pain.
Cancer treatment is a team effort. Surgical treatment in cancer; related operator doctors, drug therapy and radiotherapy are the specialties of oncologist doctors. However, all kinds of pain treatments of cancer patients should be carried out by specialist physicians dealing with pain treatment.
