Pain and Addiction in Women

Mishka Terplan
In: The American Society of Addiction Medicine Handbook on Pain and Addiction · 2018 · pp. 367–378 · doi:10.1093/med/9780190265366.003.0032 · W2799651772
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This chapter discusses how women experience pain differently from men, focusing on unique pain conditions, associated mental health and addiction issues, and management needs across different life stages.

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Abstract

Abstract Women experience pain differently than men and suffer unique pain conditions. Pain syndromes frequently overlap in women and can be associated with co-occurring mental health disorders, addiction, and intimate partner violence as well as childhood sexual abuse. A discussion of extant concepts for understanding pain in women includes gender-role theory, exposure theory, and vulnerability theory. The chapter focuses predominantly on women of child-bearing age, and their unique risks and management requirements; consequently, contraceptive needs and fulfillment are reviewed for their place in the clinical management of pain and addiction. Unique to women, dysmenorrhea, chronic pelvic pain, endometriosis, fibromyalgia, interstitial cystitis, vulvodynia, and pregnancy may all be undervalued or overlooked in a non-gynecological setting. The higher susceptibility of women to osteoporotic disease and associated pain in older age constitutes another risk zone for pain mismanagement. A text box (30.1) describes the opioid neonatal abstinence syndrome, its diagnosis, and its management.

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Condition tags

endometriosischronic_pelvic_paindysmenorrheainterstitial_cystitis

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