Gallbladder Cancer Treatment: Pain Management

Pain Management for Gallbladder Cancer

Most patients with advanced gallbladder cancer experience pain during the course of their gallbladder cancer treatment. At Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA), our integrative care team understands how unrelieved pain can significantly diminish your quality of life. That's why we work to provide a variety of complementary pain management therapies to help make your gallbladder cancer treatment as comfortable as possible.

Cancer-related pain is normally classified as either acute or chronic. Acute pain generally results from tissue damage and is of limited duration. Once the cause of acute pain has been identified, it can be successfully managed. Chronic pain, on the other hand, is persistent—usually greater than three months in duration. Because the cause of chronic pain often cannot be altered, your nervous system will adapt, which may cause additional side effects of depression, anxiety and/or insomnia.

Causes

The severity and prevalence of pain you may experience during your gallbladder cancer treatment depends on many factors, from the site and stage of your gallbladder cancer to the location of metastases (where the cancer has spread). Cancer-related pain can result from both gallbladder cancer treatment, as well as the disease process itself.

At CTCA, we understand that pain affects each gallbladder cancer patient differently. Your unique experience depends on factors such as age, personality, perception, pain threshold and even past experiences with pain. Psychological factors (e.g., fear, worries) can also influence how you interpret and deal with pain. Insomnia, fatigue and anxiety may lower the pain threshold, while rest, sleep and diversion can raise it.

Assessment

An accurate assessment of your pain experience will help our care team determine which pain management techniques will be most beneficial to you during your gallbladder cancer treatment. A comprehensive assessment will examine the following dimensions of your pain:

• Location
• Intensity
• Factors influencing its occurrence
• Observed behaviors during pain
• Psychosocial variables (e.g., attitudes, situational factors)
• Effects of pain
• Effects of therapy and patterns of coping

Pain management

The goal of pain management is not only relief from pain, but to enable you to retain your normal quality of life throughout your gallbladder cancer treatment. All methods of pain management used by our care team will attempt to either control the cause of the pain or alter your perception of it.

Although pain management techniques are many and varied, approaches are generally classified as being either pharmacological or nonpharmacological. Pharmacological pain control involves the use of analgesics, as well as other medications that intensify the analgesics' effects or modify your mood or pain perception. Nonpharmacological approaches to pain management include:

• Behavioral techniques
• Radiation
• Surgery
• Neurological and neurosurgical interventions
• Traditional nursing and psychosocial interventions

The latter measures attempt to promote your comfort and evaluate the effectiveness of the therapy. Because of the complex nature of pain related to gallbladder cancer, successful management usually involves a combination of techniques.

Next Topic: Naturopathic Medicine for Gallbladder Cancer