Acute Effects of Alcohol Use on Chronic Orofacial Pain

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Project Summary/Abstract It has long been suggested that alcohol has analgesic properties. Data suggest that about 25% of chronic orofacial pain patients endorse the use of alcohol for pain management. However, the biopsychosocial mechanisms underlying this intuitive interaction are not well established. Studies of healthy individuals using quantitative sensory testing (QST) have shown that familial risk for alcoholism, as well as psychological characteristics like mood and personality, may act as critical factors modulating individuals’ sensitivity to alcohol analgesia. However, to our knowledge, the acute pain-relieving effect of alcohol intake in individuals with chronic pain has never been systematically studied. This relationship is important to understand because alcohol analgesia may be associated with relief. Relief from pain may act as a potent negative reinforcer for alcohol intake, which, in turn, can have adverse health effects by increasing risk of developing an alcohol use disorder in people with chronic pain. Self-medication of pain with alcohol may also result in harmful drug interactions, risk of injury due to neurobehavioral impairment, and even development of painful alcohol neuropathy. The overall goal of this proposal is to test the analgesic effects of acute alcohol consumption in individuals with chronic pain and a comparison group of pain-free controls, and identify critical biopsychosocial modulators of alcohol analgesia. These efforts will inform research and clinical/translational efforts regarding modifiable and unmodifiable factors related to risk associated with self-medication of chronic pain using alcohol, and provide critical feasibility and effect size data for future proposals