When was the last time you asked your parents – why were you up last night so late?
Sleep disturbances due to reasons other than pain may be sorted at personal level. Poor sleep hygiene, eating habits, medicines, untimely caffeine, indulging in visually stimulating pictures / videos in gadgets are few commonly ignored causes. These can be sorted with awareness and having a close watch on habits.
But sleep disturbances due to pain needs evaluation by a clinician. It can be any pain – headache, neck /back pain, abdominal pain – but basis can be a sinister pathology like infection / cancer.
These two entities are known to cause more perceivable pain due to inherent tissue level activity.
Elderly people often have reasons to convince themselves that with increasing age there can be multiple aches throughout the body. This can turn out be a over simplification of something big. Spinal infection and cancers (primary and metastatic) are more prevalent in elderly age group.
SINISTER REASONS
1. CANCERS – Bone/ spine/ organs
2. INFECTION- Bone / organs
3. FRACTURES – cancer / osteoporosis related
4. NEUROGENIC PAIN – Nerve inflammation / compression
All it takes is a simple clinical evaluation and x- rays with blood investigations if pain persists with sleep disturbances.
“ANY PAIN THAT WAKES YOU UP AT NIGHT NEEDS ATTENTION”
AUTHOR- Dr.Barani , orthopedic spine surgeon ( krbarani@gmail.com)
