4 ms·

Acute pain is a symptom. Chronic pain is a disease. Most chronic pain is not directly connected with a root cause. Spinal MRIs for example are poor predictors

Acute pain is a symptom. Chronic pain is a disease. Most chronic pain is not directly connected with a root cause. Spinal MRIs for example are poor predictors of spinal pain. It is an upmodulation of pain sensation in the peripheral nervous system/brain stem. It isn't mental and it isn't psychosomatic - it is very real. And you can't just ignore it - although there are techniques in pain psychology that help. This is hopeful, but then so are Nerve Growth Factor drugs and it isn't looking too good for them at the moment. The second to last drug in trials failed the safety trial. At any moment we could learn the last drug failed as well, and then the entire group is DOA. Drug development is horrible to wait on, for people that badly need the drugs. Animal trials work in humans what, 10% of the time? This is great research, but it won't be a treatment for at least a decade, if ever :( Here's WebMD saying the same thing about what chronic pain is: https://www.webmd.com/pain-management/guide/cause-chronic-pain https://www.webmd.com/pain-management/guide/cause-chronic-pa... "In many cases, however, the source of chronic pain can be a very complex and even mysterious issue to untangle. Although it may begin with an injury or illness, ongoing pain can develop a psychological dimension after the physical problem has healed. This fact alone makes pinning down a single course of treatment tricky, and it is why health care providers often find they have to try a number of different types of curative steps." Psychological is wrong, there's nothing psychological about it - wrong part of the brain. The brain stem is not psychological, its neurological. Psychological techniques can help you cope, though.

cpncrunch 7y ago
Psychosomatic == real. If your heart rate increases when you are frightened, is that imaginary? While some research shows changes in the brainstem, fMRI shows differences in blood flow in various parts of the brain associated with processing emotions. Right now we don't have a definitive answer as to what causes chronic pain. But we do know for certain that the parts of the brain dealing with pain are also involved in emotional processing. It's actually very easy to demonstrate to yourself that pain can be psychosomatic. If you're riding your bike and imagine falling off, you will experience real pain. (At least, it happens for me, and I assume I'm not the only person who that happens to). Here is an interesting fMRI study looking at the effects of pain processing in both fibromyalgia patients and healthy participants: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1016/j.ejpain.2008.06.010 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1016/j.ejpain.200...
- rjurney 7y ago
  Chronic pain is not psychosomatic. That has nothing to do with chronic pain. People like to blame the patient, that they're not trying hard enough to will their way through it... like you do through any other challenge. That is a really harmful attitude. You mean well, but you're hurting the people you treat this way. You should educate yourself about what chronic pain is if you want to be inspirational rather than causing harm. A chronic pain patient can't psych themselves out and not hurt. There are some techniques in pain psychology that help a bit, like mindfulness techniques or imagining the pain tingles but doesn't hurt, but they're only somewhat effective and that is as good as it gets in terms of psychology.

cpncrunch 7y ago

Psychosomatic == real. If your heart rate increases when you are frightened, is that imaginary? While some research shows changes in the brainstem, fMRI shows differences in blood flow in various parts of the brain associated with processing emotions. Right now we don't have a definitive answer as to what causes chronic pain. But we do know for certain that the parts of the brain dealing with pain are also involved in emotional processing. It's actually very easy to demonstrate to yourself that pain can be psychosomatic. If you're riding your bike and imagine falling off, you will experience real pain. (At least, it happens for me, and I assume I'm not the only person who that happens to). Here is an interesting fMRI study looking at the effects of pain processing in both fibromyalgia patients and healthy participants: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1016/j.ejpain.2008.06.010 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1016/j.ejpain.200...

rjurney 7y ago
Chronic pain is not psychosomatic. That has nothing to do with chronic pain. People like to blame the patient, that they're not trying hard enough to will their way through it... like you do through any other challenge. That is a really harmful attitude. You mean well, but you're hurting the people you treat this way. You should educate yourself about what chronic pain is if you want to be inspirational rather than causing harm. A chronic pain patient can't psych themselves out and not hurt. There are some techniques in pain psychology that help a bit, like mindfulness techniques or imagining the pain tingles but doesn't hurt, but they're only somewhat effective and that is as good as it gets in terms of psychology.