3 ms·

No, your body perceiving something in there is the main problem, if even 10% of the effort spent on finding the covid vaccine was spent on understanding how ner

No, your body perceiving something in there is the main problem, if even 10% of the effort spent on finding the covid vaccine was spent on understanding how nerves work and how can we modify/intercept nerve signals we could tackle this issue among many others to make pain a thing of the past.

gruez 6y ago
>if even 10% of the effort spent on finding the covid vaccine was spent on understanding how nerves work and how can we modify/intercept nerve signals I find it hard to believe that pain isn't a well studied area of medicine. But to answer your question, we already do know how to "modify/intercept nerve signals", they're called painkillers.
- apatters 6y ago
  I'm not a doctor but if you've ever had to deal with nerve pain or neurological conditions in general, there's a ton of stuff we don't know. Doctors will readily admit this. Not sure that the question of whether we've "tried hard" to understand it is a productive one but there's a ton of stuff where we have only a vague idea of what is going on, we prescribe drugs that sort of work but we don't know how they work, conditions that they can't even nail down a diagnosis for, etc. It's probably one of the least well understood areas of medicine.
  - solveit 6y ago
    > Not sure that the question of whether we've "tried hard" to understand it is a productive one The point is that more effort isn't likely to dramatically change things on the margin. Whether we know much about pain in an absolute sense is really quite orthogonal to the question.
    - mattigames 6y ago
      >The point is that more effort isn't likely to dramatically change things on the margin. Citation needed; I think is completely possible to modify nerve communication in real time and its within our reach but the resources to do all the research and experiments just aren't there; the causes with the big bucks are things like cancer research (nothing worng with that, just pointing it out); plus many artificial obstacles to make lab-grown nerves such as religious organizations against stem cell research.
- redis_mlc 6y ago
  Western medicine is great when you can X-ray something, but quickly loses certainty when you can't. Pain is something where acupuncture and other related methods might be better.
- calvano915 6y ago
  Well-studied perhaps but often not effectively given due attention, except for modalities that are easy to apply (medication, TENS, ultrasound, etc) despite insufficient or quickly diminishing effectiveness. The US healthcare system isn't oriented around more time consuming approaches (highly individual; hard to "dose" and ensure adherence) for chronic pain such as stretching, stress relief, postural improvements, etc. For acute pain such as the OPs experience, painkillers are/should be first line when treatment is indicated.

gruez 6y ago

>if even 10% of the effort spent on finding the covid vaccine was spent on understanding how nerves work and how can we modify/intercept nerve signals I find it hard to believe that pain isn't a well studied area of medicine. But to answer your question, we already do know how to "modify/intercept nerve signals", they're called painkillers.

apatters 6y ago
I'm not a doctor but if you've ever had to deal with nerve pain or neurological conditions in general, there's a ton of stuff we don't know. Doctors will readily admit this. Not sure that the question of whether we've "tried hard" to understand it is a productive one but there's a ton of stuff where we have only a vague idea of what is going on, we prescribe drugs that sort of work but we don't know how they work, conditions that they can't even nail down a diagnosis for, etc. It's probably one of the least well understood areas of medicine.
- solveit 6y ago
  > Not sure that the question of whether we've "tried hard" to understand it is a productive one The point is that more effort isn't likely to dramatically change things on the margin. Whether we know much about pain in an absolute sense is really quite orthogonal to the question.
  - mattigames 6y ago
    >The point is that more effort isn't likely to dramatically change things on the margin. Citation needed; I think is completely possible to modify nerve communication in real time and its within our reach but the resources to do all the research and experiments just aren't there; the causes with the big bucks are things like cancer research (nothing worng with that, just pointing it out); plus many artificial obstacles to make lab-grown nerves such as religious organizations against stem cell research.
redis_mlc 6y ago
Western medicine is great when you can X-ray something, but quickly loses certainty when you can't. Pain is something where acupuncture and other related methods might be better.
calvano915 6y ago
Well-studied perhaps but often not effectively given due attention, except for modalities that are easy to apply (medication, TENS, ultrasound, etc) despite insufficient or quickly diminishing effectiveness. The US healthcare system isn't oriented around more time consuming approaches (highly individual; hard to "dose" and ensure adherence) for chronic pain such as stretching, stress relief, postural improvements, etc. For acute pain such as the OPs experience, painkillers are/should be first line when treatment is indicated.