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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?

#11

Post by theobon »

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 well understood by pain researchers and the article explicitly mentions that they are trying to find solutions that address chronic pain without impacting the pain responses you are referring to.

"The team bred genetically engineered mice from embryos that had HCN2 excised from their DNA. Subsequent experiments showed that these mice did not develop neuropathic pain (the kind that affects the nervous system and is often caused by long-term conditions such as cancer or diabetes). Not only that, the mice with HCN2 cut out were still able to feel acute pain – the necessary, protective jolt that tells us to remove our finger from a drawing pin. “That’s the holy grail,” McNaughton told me"

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

#12

Post by searine »

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 already is a cure to chronic pain and it is called correct diagnosis.

There are many many conditions where even with a proper diagnosis there is little help.

One of the easiest things to do with chronic pain patients is to minimize or handwave their pain as transient. There is no surgery for many of these people. No drugs that aren't heavily addictive. Little to no hope of anything but a lifetime of pain.

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

#13

Post by threehams »

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.

Pain is sometimes a symptom of something else. The overwhelming belief that pain is always a symptom of something else has held back research for decades.

"At least initially, a clinician probably will assume pain is a symptom of some underlying condition and prescribe analgesics, while focusing on discovering what the underlying problem might be. But if a cause cannot be found, if early treatments fail to bring improvement, and if pain persists for several months, it may progress to the point where it becomes a disease in itself, that is, an abnormal condition that impairs or disrupts normal bodily functioning (this is almost always chronic pain). Then, regardless of the initiating process, cause, or underlying disease, the clinician must focus on management of the pain condition in order to assist in restoring the individual to a better state of health. This is not to say that all pain is a serious disease. When pain is a disease in itself, however, it requires comprehensive assessment, care planning, and treatment."

From the peer-reviewed source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK92517/

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

#14

Post by close04 »

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.

Acute and chronic pain are different. The point isn't to find the cure that blocks all pain at all times, or to do it completely unsupervised. But under doctor supervision a real cure for chronic pain (not a load of opioids) would be a life changer for so many people.

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

#15

Post by searine »

Cannibusted wrote: post #7

Tramadol works great for my chronic pain.

Opioids work wonders for chronic pain, the downside being obvious, but when used responsibly they are a lifesaver.

Lurk any chronic pain support group and you will find hundreds of people terrified of going back to the dark ages before opioids. Over-enforcement of the epidemic is real and doing damage to already damaged people.

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

#17

Post by johnward »

searine wrote: post #12
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 already is a cure to chronic pain and it is called correct diagnosis. There are many many conditions where even with a proper diagnosis there is little help. One of the easiest things to do with chronic pain patients is to minimize or handwave their pain as transient. There is no surgery for many of these people. No drugs that aren't heavily addictive. Little to no hope of anything but a lifetime of pain.

> There are many many conditions where even with a proper diagnosis there is little help.

Yeah, my dad has very bad diabetic neuropathy and there isn't really anything they can do about that condition from what I understand. I'm sure there are plenty of other conditions like Fibromyalgia and more.

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

#18

Post by ctrl-j »

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.

> Ignoring pain is akin to ignoring the "check engine light".

I had surgery to remove a cyst that resulted in some scar tissue developing that presses on a nerve when stretched or compressed. Pretty acute pain when that happens - and pretty constant low level pain otherwise. No real "cure" as the odds are very high that the scar tissue will just re-form when excised.

In my case it's more like the "check engine light" was rewired to also light up when you press the clutch pedal. Sometimes all you can do is put some electrical tape over the light.

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

#19

Post by erentz »

sebiche wrote: post #5
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.

Did you read the article? It mentions fibromyalgia, which is a chronic pain condition with an unknown root cause. If you have any information the rest of the world doesn't have regarding the root cause of it, maybe you should have made that your comment instead of a cliche aphorism.

It's not quite as unknown as commonly believed. At least 40% of fibromyalgia have observable neuropathy on biopsies pointing to a process that is damaging nerves. The "what" is still unknown. But the parent is correct to say for fibromyalgia patients the optimal solution is a treatment (or cure) targeting that damaging process, rather than a pain killer.

This is not to say better pain killers aren't valuable, they obviously are, it's just that for many of these chronic pain disorders there is some underlying cause that if we can treat would be the better solution.

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

#20

Post by sdegutis »

Although there is value in trying to removing pain when doing so would be ethical, this thread mentions many situations where there is pain but no possibility yet of removing or reducing it. In these cases, a long-term general solution is to continue research on these situations. But the short-term solution per person is to learn the meaning and value of suffering. It is frowned upon in intellectual forums to discuss religion, as if religion were incompatible with logic and reason. But Jesus came to teach us how to endure suffering without failing in our duties. That is what he did, what he showed us how to do, and what he gives us the power to do through the Sacraments, especially Holy Communion. Because this is true power: to endure suffering without failing. And evil means failure because it is an absence of power to do what is both good and proper; sin is simply a lack of power. You will not learn any of this in any philosophy or world-religions class, or intellectual discussions over caviar. You will only learn and understand this through experiencing it, which can only be started by a humble trust that Jesus came into this world to suffer and die for our sake, out of love for us, and he will teach us how to do good, even in the midst of suffering. He knows our pain better than we do. He suffered more than we ever could.
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