Lone Star Pain Medicine works with cancer patients to help manage both disease and treatment pain. From the pain of metastatic cancer to the discomfort caused by chemotherapy and radiation, pain is something that cancer patients live with on a daily basis. Is regular exercise really going to help?
Oncologists routinely recommend that cancer patients get regular exercise if physically possible. As odd as that might sound, there is real science behind such recommendations. Exercise can help cancer patients feel less pain.
A Landmark Study Changed Everything
At the turn of the 21st century, we didn’t know much about the relationship between exercise and cancer pain. The medical community suspected that regular exercise could help alleviate cancer pain, but there were no large-scale studies proving at. Everything changed with the landmark study published in 2011.
That study, entitled “Physical Activity and Pain in People with and without Cancer”, looked at the experiences of more than 62,000 patients between 2009 and 2011. Just over 10,600 of the study participants were cancer patients. To say this was a large-scale study is an understatement.
Here is what the study revealed:
- Inactive patients not exercising at the start of the study reported less pain after beginning regular exercise within the 2-year study period.
- Active patients exercising at the start of the study also reported less pain even though they stopped exercising within the 2-year study period.
- Certain types of cancer responded better to physical exercise than others.
- Exercise had no meaningful impact on analgesic use.
The researchers behind the study analyzed all the data and concluded that exercise does help alleviate cancer pain to some extent. Does it completely eliminate the pain? In most patients, no. But combining exercise with other pain management strategies can make an enormous difference.
Why Exercise Might Help
Research data are pretty convincing. Regular exercise does seem to help with cancer pain management. But why? What is it about exercise that makes a difference in how patients experience pain? While we don’t know the exact mechanisms, there are plenty of possibilities:
- Inflammatory Response – We know that physical activity influences certain cytokines. It also can have an impact on tumor necrosis. Subsequently, it could be that exercise reduces the inflammatory response associated with cancer treatment.
- Strength and Conditioning – We also know that regular exercise can help increase muscle mass and joint flexibility. Both help to regulate pain by counteracting muscle weakness and joint issues.
- Pain Sensitivity – Pain sensitivity can be impacted by modulating central pain pathways. Non-cancer studies have demonstrated that regular physical activity contributes to such modulation. It may contribute in the same way to cancer pain management.
- Treatment Tolerance – Regular exercise likely improves the body’s ability to withstand the rigors of cancer treatment. A stronger body is more tolerant of the effects of chemotherapy and radiation.
- Fatigue Reduction – Regular exercise increases energy levels in both healthy and sick people. For a cancer patient, more energy means more resistance to the fatigue normally associated with treatment. Less fatigue could contribute to less pain.
Our goal here at Lone Star Pain Medicine is to help patients manage their pain so that they can take their lives back. We treat cancer pain using a range of therapies, including epidurals, nerve blocks, radiofrequency neurotomy, and more. We also recommend regular exercise for those patients who can manage it.
Exercise alone is unlikely to completely alleviate cancer pain. Likewise, analgesics and the treatments we offer may not provide total relief. But a combination of all three could make a significant difference.
