Chronic Back Pain and Sleep

When chronic back pain disturbs your sleep night after night, you might despair of ever getting a good night’s sleep. But experts say that with proper treatment, the chances are very good that you can get relief from chronic back pain and enjoy normal sleep.

Why Sleep Is Important When You Have Chronic Back Pain

The inability to get a good night’s sleep hurts — literally. Chronic back pain prevents you from getting a good night’s sleep. You wake up hurting even more.

Pain interferes with the normal cycles of light and deep sleep you need in order to wake up refreshed. The disruption is called “alpha delta sleep disorder.” When back pain prevents you from getting adequate deep, or delta, sleep, you awaken in the morning tired and hurting.

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1. Learn deep breathing or meditation to help with chronic pain.

see the rest here. 

Sleep Disorders: Sleep and Chronic Illness

A chronic illness is an illness that lasts for a long time and usually cannot be cured, but it often can be controlled. Examples include diabetes, arthritis, HIV/AIDS, lupus, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and multiple sclerosis.

The pain and fatigue that people with chronic illness experience have a large impact on their daily lives, including sleep. Because of their illness, people with chronic illnesses often have trouble sleeping at night, and are sleepy during the day. This is especially the case for people who have neurological (nervous system) diseases, such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. Additionally, many people with chronic illnesses also suffer from depression, which can also affect their sleep. Lastly, some drugs used to treat chronic illnesses can cause sleep problems. … keep reading

Q: My cousin is only 25, but he was just diagnosed with arthritis in his back that they said was due to some hereditary condition. What is this? A: There is a gene called HLA-B27 that is
associated with “seronegative spondyloarthropathies,” including
ankylosing spondylitis. Lots of big words here, so I will discuss this
and try to simplify the jargon. You should verify this is what your
cousin has.
Certain traits run in families. These include genes that put someone
at risk for developing a specific condition. Not everyone who inherits
the gene develops the condition, and sometimes people without the gene
get the condition anyway; why this is so is still a bit of a medical
mystery.
Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is a type of back arthritis that falls
into this category. Ankylos is Greek for bent or crooked and spondylos
refers to the bones of the spine, so AS is a disease of the spine that,
when severe, can eventually make the affected person become bent-over
or hunched. Since this is a hereditary condition, first-degree
relatives of someone affected are at an increased risk of developing it.
AS is an inflammatory disease where the body attacks itself. The
inflammation erodes the spinal bones (vertebrae), and the body
overreacts to this by producing too much new bone. Subsequently two
adjacent vertebrae grow into each other and become fused.…… continue for full story

Ankylosing spondylitis (AS; also known as Bechterew’s disease; Bechterew syndrome; Marie Strümpell disease / Marie Struempell disease / Spondyloarthritis) is a chronic, painful, degenerative inflammatory arthritis primarily affecting spine and sacroiliac joints, causing eventual fusion of the spine; it is a member of the group of the autoimmune spondyloarthropathies with a probable genetic predisposition. Complete fusion results in a complete rigidity of the spine, a condition known as bamboo spine…. more from Wikipedia

Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is a chronic inflammatory form of arthritis that affects the spinal joints. The hallmark feature of AS is the involvement of the joints at the base of the spine where the spine joins the pelvis – the sacroiliac (SI) joints.

The disease course is highly variable, and while some individuals have episodes of transient back pain only, others have more chronic severe back pain that leads to differing degrees of spinal stiffness over time. In almost all cases the disease is characterized by acute painful episodes and remissions (periods where the problem settles).

Over the years AS has been known by many different names including poker back, rheumatoid spondylitis, and Marie-Strumpells spondylitis. Since the early 70s with increasing knowledge about the disease, there is almost universal use of the term ankylosing spondylitis (AS).

AS is a member of the family of diseases that attack the spine. These are named spondylarthropathies. In addition to AS, these diseases include Reiter’s syndrome, some cases of psoriatic arthritis and the arthritis of inflammatory bowel disease…. more from the Arthritis Society’s Website