Physical pain for children: how to avoid it

We are usually used to thinking of pain as a symptom of discomfort, a signal of something wrong with our body but, as pointed out by Dr. Massimo Allegri, specialist in pain therapy at the Policlinico San Matteo in Pavia, we must consider that sometimes the pain itself can become chronic, thus turning into a real disease. As such it presents a complex neurophysiology and requires specific treatments to address it. Hence the need to have access to "pain therapy", access to which in Italy has been a right acquired by law for some years now (Law No. 38 of 2010 on the right to access pain therapy and to palliative care). The indication is clear: pain does not have to be endured and, to ensure the patient the best medical care, its treatment is always recommended.

Pediatric pain
A particularly delicate aspect of the question concerns children and the opportunity to avoid them the inconvenience associated with some medical procedures: we are not only talking about particularly invasive ones, such as oncological therapies, but also more simply about minor ones, such as the removal of blood, intramuscular injection or minor interventions such as wound dressing.

See also

Why our hands sweat: 5 top remedies to avoid it

Chronic pelvic pain: how to recognize it?

Contractures and muscle tension from anxiety? The signs to understand if your pain

It is now also recognized by international guidelines that procedural pain must be controlled and treated, to guarantee pediatric patients the least possible suffering, also in the future. The memory of pain, Dr. Allegri points out, is not a simple matter of the brain: the painful experience also involves the spinal cord, and it has been shown that those who suffer from a spinal cord as a child will suffer more in the future.

How then to intervene on the pain caused by minor invasive procedures? You can go from "distracting" techniques to the use of a topical anesthetic on the skin, but it would make little sense that any local anesthesia would in turn cause pain, and that is why new ways of administering the active ingredients have been identified. Particularly interesting in this regard, remembers Dr. Allegri, the use of medicated patches based on lidocaine and tetracaine, with excellent tolerability, which are able to guarantee uniform anesthesia in a short time even in the deeper layers of the epidermis.

The rapidity of action and the analgesic efficacy of these patches are due to their particular mechanism of action with controlled heat release: local heating is in fact able to increase blood flow, improving skin absorption of the anesthetic. topical.

in collaboration with Il Portale della Salute