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Dr. David Maine (left), Director, Center for Interventional Pain Medicine at Mercy and Dr. Marlyn Lorenzo, Rheumatology

Drs. David Maine And Marlyn Lorenzo Discuss Recent Research That Shows A Link Between Pain And The Development Of Arthritis

Any pain specialist will tell you that pain is a complex interaction of physical, emotional and psychological factors, but could pain pathways spread arthritis from one joint to another?

As an interventional pain specialist at Mercy Medical Center, Dr. David Maine deals with patients who have pain every day. Dr. Maine notes that arthritis pain is a “cross talk” between the joint affected and the spinal cord, “like a highway.”

“You start having joint problems, inflammation occurs—with that inflammation come certain biochemical markers that will travel up the highway to the spinal cord,” Dr. Maine, Director of Interventional Pain Medicine at Mercy, said.

The spinal cord may increase those biochemical markers, then send them back to the joint—in fact, a recent study notes that it may also send those markers to other joints.

“Almost spreading it from one joint to the next. That’s incredibly fascinating because it changes how we think about the disease and potentially how we target the disease,” Dr. Maine said.

According to Mercy rheumatologist Dr. Marlyn Lorenzo, “I do see patients who have pain and after the onset of the pain, continue to develop more pain even in other areas of their body—it’s like a trigger,” she said.

The question now is can researchers develop a medication that will safely block those biomarkers from spreading? Drs. Maine and Lorenzo agree that more research is necessary and may one day change the way arthritis and pain are treated.

For more information, watch WBAL-TV11's Woman's Doctor segment on this issue at http://www.wbaltv.com/video/18518292/index.html.