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Will there ever be a cure for chronic pain?

1843magazine.com

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Re: Will there ever be a cure for chronic pain?

#41

Post by avgDev »

nordsieck wrote: post #34
NullPrefix wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If I did not do my own research, I would literally still be living with this pain If you want to hire someone to do a job, you need to know how to do the job yourself. If you don't know, then you're prime target for stunt performances or casual incompetence.

> If you want to hire someone to do a job, you need to know how to do the job yourself. This is simply not possible with the degree of specialization in the modern economy. There's no way you can be an electrician-plumber-mechanic-doctor-lawyer-IT specialist. This is precisely why people care about reputations and gossip.

He is not wrong. I know quite a bit about plumbing, electrical work, car repair......Large amount of people who are licensed or considered experts are pretty terrible or generally lazy and cut corners. Finding someone good is really difficult.

Re: Will there ever be a cure for chronic pain?

#42

Post by avgDev »

babyslothzoo wrote: post #35
avgDev wrote: post #8

Oof. To answer the headline, there already is a cure to chronic pain and it is called correct diagnosis. When i was 21 I had chronic pain for 8 months, doctors gave me anti-biotics, NSAIDS, steroids.....but pain was just there. After months of research I found a surgeon in California, who performed surgeries on "Sports Hernia", almost like inguinal hernia without any bumps. I flew out to have the surgery, pictures ta…

Did you have a specific event that caused your injury, that led you to do your own research in that direction? And are you hypothesizing that your injury may be related to prior fluoroquinolone use? Proper diagnosis is hard, and most doctors are generalists rather than specialists. A common medical aphorism is "When you hear hooves, think of horses not zebras".

Yes, I was liftings weights, felt a pop, instantly thought....oof hernia, but doctors disagreed as they could not feel any bumps and I suffered for months. Flouroquinoles came after and are unrelated to that injury.

Re: Will there ever be a cure for chronic pain?

#43

Post by [deleted] »

avgDev wrote: post #8

Oof. To answer the headline, there already is a cure to chronic pain and it is called correct diagnosis. When i was 21 I had chronic pain for 8 months, doctors gave me anti-biotics, NSAIDS, steroids.....but pain was just there. After months of research I found a surgeon in California, who performed surgeries on "Sports Hernia", almost like inguinal hernia without any bumps. I flew out to have the surgery, pictures ta…

[deleted]

Re: Will there ever be a cure for chronic pain?

#44

Post by nate »

Tangent from the article, but when I read the headline I thought I'd at least share in case it helps anyone who might have chronic pain like I've dealt with lately.

For years now I've been suffering from tons of weird shit. I've had this persistent painful skin rash that pops up all over my body. Steroids would kill it for awhile but it would always come back. Folks would ask me if I had burned myself when they'd see places on my skin. Just chalked up to an allergy from my doctors (to what? many things they guessed).

To top that fun off, my knees and one shoulder have been killing me. Had trouble walking up stairs. Couldn't do pull-ups anymore without extreme pain. I'd wake up in pain. Just constant pain. People just chalk that up to me getting older. Arthritis I guess.

But then my wife felt like trying to do some Whole 30 kind of thing. I hate this stuff. But whatever. She needed support so I went along with it. Cut out gluten, dairy, alcohol, sugar. Low-carb. High protein.

And after a week: I could move my arm above my head again. Walking up stairs became normal. Huh! Cool!

I thought, maybe my body just needed a reset and gave that diet up.

All this stuff came back.

Now realize how important it is for me to stay on a low-carb diet. It doesn't seem to be gluten or dairy getting me. But sugar, alcohol and carbs. And I wouldn't say I was that bad at eating those before. But clearly I'm super sensitive to them.

Today, I stay on a low-carb diet. I cheat on Saturdays. Allow myself to eat the nominal sugary treat and have a couple alcoholic drinks. But I barely want to since my life is just like a billion times better.

All that joint pain is gone. My skin has cleared up. I'm doing pull ups again. Running a ton. Just did 8.5 miles today.

So, all I know, is if you feel like shit constantly, it might be worth throwing sugar and alcohol away. Might be worth trying an elimination diet. I can't believe how long I laughed this stuff off when clearly it's so incredibly important and has transformed my life.

Edit: I forgot to mention the brain fog I was living with too. There was a fluid in my ears screwing with my balance. Felt like I had a head cold. Also has cleared up.

Re: Will there ever be a cure for chronic pain?

#45

Post by rjurney »

babyslothzoo wrote: post #30
Cannibusted wrote: post #7

Tramadol works great for my chronic pain.

That's because opioids remain the single most effective pain treatment that humans have available. People have been using them for 4000+ years, they have a long track record of efficacy (and safety). Managing pain with opioids is not much different than managing diabetes with insulin. I realize the media mania and moral panic doesn't convey that because it doesn't fit the hype narrative, but there is a huge differenc…

The opioid action of Tramadol is far less than Codeine. That's mostly not how it works.

Re: Will there ever be a cure for chronic pain?

#46

Post by DoreenMichele »

avgDev wrote: post #8

Oof. To answer the headline, there already is a cure to chronic pain and it is called correct diagnosis. When i was 21 I had chronic pain for 8 months, doctors gave me anti-biotics, NSAIDS, steroids.....but pain was just there. After months of research I found a surgeon in California, who performed surgeries on "Sports Hernia", almost like inguinal hernia without any bumps. I flew out to have the surgery, pictures ta…

To answer the headline, there already is a cure to chronic pain and it is called correct diagnosis.

Correct diagnosis combined with proper and effective treatment. Sadly, medicine doesn't offer effective treatment for the underlying cause of pain in far too many cases.

If you have FQAD, you might try looking up "nutrient depletions" for any and all drugs you were on. Also, look up any nutrients that need to be taken with those nutrients. So, for example, if they cause magnesium deficiency, you will probably need not only magnesium, but also calcium and vitamins D and K and maybe something else as well.

Re: Will there ever be a cure for chronic pain?

#47

Post by rjurney »

juancn wrote: post #2

Should there be one? Pain is a symptom of something else, treat the root cause. Managing pain should only be a temporary measure.

This is not medical reality. Chronic pain is usually caused by an up-modulation of pain transmission in the peripheral and central nervous system. It is totally distinct from acute, short term pain with a clear cause. It is treated differently, responds differently to medications and is generally a horrible malady compared to acute pain.

Re: Will there ever be a cure for chronic pain?

#48

Post by Retric »

rjurney wrote: post #39
avgDev wrote: post #8

Oof. To answer the headline, there already is a cure to chronic pain and it is called correct diagnosis. When i was 21 I had chronic pain for 8 months, doctors gave me anti-biotics, NSAIDS, steroids.....but pain was just there. After months of research I found a surgeon in California, who performed surgeries on "Sports Hernia", almost like inguinal hernia without any bumps. I flew out to have the surgery, pictures ta…

There is usually no cure for chronic pain. This is medical fact. Your case is not descriptive. It is usually not caused by scar tissue, or an infection. For example MRI reports are only slightly correlated with actual spinal pain. It generally involves an up modulation of pain sensation in the peripheral and central nervous system. It is worthwhile to investigate the cause but most people don't find a cure like you d…

That’s exactly the kind of diagnosis you get when the real answer is “I don’t know.” Peripheral nervous system issues may be the root cause for some chronic pain, but it’s very difficult to rule out all other causes.

Also, MRI’s are still very much blunt instruments. A high resolution 1 millimetre scan is still representing ~100,000+ cells per voxel.

Re: Will there ever be a cure for chronic pain?

#49

Post by rjurney »

ed312 wrote: post #6
viklove wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've clearly never had a surgery. Many invasive surgeries can result in lifelong pain with no underlying cause. Having a doctor muck about with your internals leaves nerve endings in the wrong place and scar tissue that will never heal. Source: Had two pneumothoraces that resulted in lung surgery years ago, still get pain every day that I just have to ignore.

While the parent is being a bit crass, there is a valuable underlying point. Ignoring pain is akin to ignoring the "check engine light". We (as a society) should really try to figure out the root causes AND (not or) find more targeted pain management. Perhaps your pain can be safely ignored (from a medical point of view). Perhaps its truly a signal there is a new or greater risk.

Unfortunately most chronic pain has no clear cause. That's why spinal surgery is much more discouraged these days for spinal pain. Artifacts on spinal MRIs for example are only slightly correlated with pain. Many people have severe problems in their spine and no chronic spinal pain and many people have no clear problem and terrible spinal pain. The nervous system is complicated and there are a lot of risk factors for developing chronic pain: job dissatisfaction, sitting all day long, depression, repetitive strain, stress, etc. And no, it isn't mental or psychosomatic, it's very real. It's in the peripheral nervous system and the base of the brain.

Re: Will there ever be a cure for chronic pain?

#50

Post by rjurney »

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-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.

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