Why I left my tech job to work on chronic pain • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I left my tech job to work on chronic pain

#171

Post by kalkaran » Fri, Jul 04, 2025, 10:48 PM UTC

trts wrote: post #146

aspbee555 wrote: post #34

I felt like I was dying at 35 years old, my body was completely betraying me, exhausted, constant pain, no life as absolutely no energy on days off and still exhausted starting the next week. Even years in the Army never left me feeling like that I had no idea it was the misery of the IT job that was causing most of my pain and suffering, and it had nothing to do with the job itself, it was the endless insanity of ev…

experienced something very similar. thought I would leave my field permanently out of frustration and despair. I like my work now, but faced with that burnout again do not think I could power through it a second time. Apropos, I had chronic pain throughout this experience. I thought it was just aging, irreversible, and something that compounded my hopelessness. It's very surprising to be 10 years older now but feel 2…

I had sciatica for years and inflation in my hips so bad I could barely walk 500 meters while in college. Basically only kept going by iboprufen, naproxen and paracetamol. I tried everything. Acupuncture/LSD/ultra sound/kiro/physio/yoga had mri’s/xrays/you name it I had dr. Sarno’s healing back pain for 2 years on my shelf before I took a holiday and read the whole thing in one go. Fell asleep for 4 hours and woke up pain free for the first time in 7 years. Started to come back a few times but I would just read the book again and go for a run. Been smooth sailing for 10 years now.

Re: Why I left my tech job to work on chronic pain

#172

Post by ThinkBeat » Fri, Jul 04, 2025, 11:03 PM UTC

He decided he could monetize his recovery by selling the "the cure" on a newsletter basis and using organic growth to make more money.

As he does point out he is not a doctor and his solution is not backed by extensive medical studies.

He could just write a document laying it all out, and letting people download it, easier for everyone.

(and try to get some researchers do the chekcing).

This is damn close to snakeoil.

Re: Why I left my tech job to work on chronic pain

#173

Post by sd8f9iu » Fri, Jul 04, 2025, 11:09 PM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #142

foobiekr wrote: post #106

I have a pretty severe back injury - double pars fracture and significant spondylolisthesis from an accident (not a car accident). For many years i was in incredible pain, but it just kept going, sometimes getting a lot worse. When this happened I would go get some imaging done to make sure there weren't degenerative changes that needed to be addressed - you should never, ever get back surgery if you don't need it, s…

> I hesitate to add a link to this on the thread, but there is an interesting story around chronic pain actually being psychological and there are now some high quality studies coming out. This is a misinterpretation of these studies which is common throughout this thread. The research isn’t showing that chronic pain is a psychological condition. It’s suggesting that some cases of nonspecific chronic pain that specif…

I agree. I lived with chronic pain for over a decade due to a specific medical problem that, though I could never get a precise diagnosis, was not caused by stress or my mental state. It was incredibly frustrating to deal with family and others who had read articles like this one and insisted all chronic pain was psychological in origin and needed a mind-body approach. I am happy for the author and am sure this approach works for many, but I'm not sure why they think that all chronic pain is common in cause. There are a host of chronic pain conditions that are physiological in origin and not psychological.

Re: Why I left my tech job to work on chronic pain

#174

Post by __turbobrew__ » Fri, Jul 04, 2025, 11:16 PM UTC

glasscannon wrote: post #18

incomingpain wrote: post #9

>Pain Reprocessing Therapy I asked chatgpt to explain this to me and it did a poor job. Generally speaking in my friend group. Chronic pain used to be opiods; though long ago medical cannabis came along. I couldnt tell you how many people i know who arent stoners who got into the cbd thing and fully got off opiods. 1 addiction for another, but at least cannabis has far less negatives. >If you don’t have chronic pain…

> The problem, CBD never fixes the pain. ~8 hours later you need more. 100%, medication plays a great role in providing comfort and support but it can be ineffective (and often harmful) if relied on solely for recovery from (neuroplastic) chronic pain. > There's no business case for solving chronic pain It seems some parties may be incentive aligned (e.g. insurers in Australia) - though I'm still navigating this spac…

> 100%, medication plays a great role in providing comfort and support but it can be ineffective (and often harmful) if relied on solely for recovery from (neuroplastic) chronic pain.

Medication can help you get out of a local maxima, sometimes with pain the issue is that your nervous system is hyperactive and just constantly firing which feeds back into itself in a positive feedback loop. If you can take pain meds and/or nerve blockers it can help break that loop and let you do things like go out and walk, exercise, live a life where pain is not always on the forefront of your consciousness. That in turn can let you get into a better state and break the local maxima and then you can wean off the meds.

If however, you do not change your lifestyle/condition when on the meds things will not get better long term as your body will lose responsiveness to the meds.

I am not a doctor.

Re: Why I left my tech job to work on chronic pain

#175

Post by andai » Fri, Jul 04, 2025, 11:25 PM UTC

aspbee555 wrote: post #34

I felt like I was dying at 35 years old, my body was completely betraying me, exhausted, constant pain, no life as absolutely no energy on days off and still exhausted starting the next week. Even years in the Army never left me feeling like that I had no idea it was the misery of the IT job that was causing most of my pain and suffering, and it had nothing to do with the job itself, it was the endless insanity of ev…

My grandfather said he experiences stupidity as physically painful. I suppose pain is an indicator that some kind of damage is actually occurring.

That's my experience at least, that it's not healthy to be in environments like that for any length of time. In such a place, my regret is always not leaving sooner...

Re: Why I left my tech job to work on chronic pain

#176

Post by glasscannon » Fri, Jul 04, 2025, 11:29 PM UTC

algo_lover wrote: post #163

Why do all such articles never talk about the meat of the solution? Why do I always feel like I'm being sold something. Why is it so hard to explain the solution briefly, or directly present it to me upfront. Why does it need so much of mystery around it? In this article the OP does not even mention "Pain reprocessing theory" which is what they seems to be talking about (based on the study they have linked)

Hey algo_lover, OP here.

Just woke up and this post's traction has surpassed my wildest imagination.

Similar to what pedalpete has said, I'm looking to release this in parts to ensure:

1. I am not overwhelming people and losing their interest

2. Quality remains as high as possible (I invested only a few hours into this last week as an experiment). I want this blog to be the most easily accessible, engaging + factual source for chronic pain sufferers. That requires sufficient time to nail (and it seems like I've struck a chord so far).

3. Get signals from readers week by week and tailor to the audience which is forming.

This will help me helpfully reach the most pain sufferers.

RE feel like you're being sold something. This series will cover what is needed to recover from chronic pain and be offered for free. I am looking to build a product eventually (why wouldn't I want help as many people as posssible while building a career which does good - I don't believe they're exclusive), but the information in this blog will remain free.

RE not calling out Pain reprocessing theory/therapy - I'll go through the post today and see if it makes sense to add this into #1 (or if it's better for #4). It's not something I consciously omitted when writting this post last week.

Thanks for the comment!

Re: Why I left my tech job to work on chronic pain

#177

Post by aspbee555 » Fri, Jul 04, 2025, 11:30 PM UTC

vertigolimbo wrote: post #85

aspbee555 wrote: post #34

I felt like I was dying at 35 years old, my body was completely betraying me, exhausted, constant pain, no life as absolutely no energy on days off and still exhausted starting the next week. Even years in the Army never left me feeling like that I had no idea it was the misery of the IT job that was causing most of my pain and suffering, and it had nothing to do with the job itself, it was the endless insanity of ev…

So you went back into software development after 5 years? Maybe you had a burnout and just needed to rest

I have worked with computers for decades, I love it, and for me to not even want to look at a computer was impossible for me

I made it through the Army (decades ago), I ran my own company, handled employees, etc. I have no problem with hard work and stress. My joy for computers was destroyed for a while, and it had nothing to do with the work itself, it was due to targeted intentionally malicious discrimination from the top

Re: Why I left my tech job to work on chronic pain

#178

Post by delhanty » Fri, Jul 04, 2025, 11:40 PM UTC

algo_lover wrote: post #163

Why do all such articles never talk about the meat of the solution? Why do I always feel like I'm being sold something. Why is it so hard to explain the solution briefly, or directly present it to me upfront. Why does it need so much of mystery around it? In this article the OP does not even mention "Pain reprocessing theory" which is what they seems to be talking about (based on the study they have linked)

As someone who has been mitigating and managing chronic pain for 25 years, with respect IMO your expectation is unrealistic.

There isn't a "solution" - you're looking at a life-long mitigation and management strategy that will not be "brief".

The time commitment typically goes up as one ages. I could spend 40 hours a week on nutrition, exercise and relaxation if I was trying to optimize for chronic pain reduction.

But then nothing else would get done.

Re: Why I left my tech job to work on chronic pain

#179

Post by glasscannon » Fri, Jul 04, 2025, 11:44 PM UTC

agumonkey wrote: post #127

glasscannon wrote: post #2

I recently decided to go all in on addressing chronic pain - a condition which affects an estimated 1/5 adults in the US[1] and nearly the same proportion in my country of Australia. This is the first of several blog posts exploring this invisible condition. If you're passionate about this space feel free to reach out, thanks! [1] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/wr/mm7215a1.htm [data from 2021] - [Edit] Thanks so…

Hi, thanks for the thread, what are the websites you follow the most to read about this topic ? Sometimes I wish there was a medHN

agumonkey I love this - maybe it's about time a wellness/health "HN" was started. We're living in a time of chronic health dysfunction and lack of clarity. DM (and/or anyone else) if you'd like to jam

For my recovery my reading/listening was focused on people like Dr Schubiner, Alan Gordon and some folks in Aus like Lorimer Moseley.

I'm engaging more in linking research studies in now as I experienced a lot of people (often not practitioners) making claims without links to evidence (likely to keep things simple), which made my logical brain skeptical orignally and slowed my entry to this field

Re: Why I left my tech job to work on chronic pain

#180

Post by PixelForg » Fri, Jul 04, 2025, 11:48 PM UTC

vjk800 wrote: post #155

PixelForg wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9550520/ This exercise fixed it for me. I was diagnosed with GERD last year, I already had it for 2-3 years before that, but it got worse last year. I got ppis for a couple of months and when I finished all of them it came back worse. Fortunately I found this article, and I started doing the exercise daily morning after I woke up(and still do it). I can now eat tomatoes, food…

How did you implement this? I can't figure out what these instructions in the article mean: "Exercises of dry swallowing in the bridge posture lasted for 4 weeks and were performed ten times per day (Fig. 2). The exercise was performed with 10-s intervals between swallows." Does this mean that total number of daily dry swallows in bridge position was 10 or 10 times 10 (100)?

You get in the bridge position. And then swallow, wait 10 seconds, and swallow again. So total of 10 times, I'm not sure if I could have kept up with it if I had to swallow 100 times :)