nora97
Peer Supporter
Article (there may be a paywall, unfortunately): https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/12/magazine/chronic-pain.html (Chronic Pain Is a Hidden Epidemic. It’s Time for a Revolution.)
I read the above article this morning, in which the author and chronic pain sufferer details how chronic pain is neglected in the heatlhcare industry. While I certainly applaud that the author is at least bringing awareness to chronic pain and validating those who have been overlooked, I believe the author completely missed the mark on the solution. She reiterates how pain is not well-understood and that precision medicine, in the form of more drugs & pills, bring hope to the field. She applauds Vertex Therapeutics for a novel approach to pain killers. There is absolutely no mention of mindbody syndrome or Dr. Sarno, or the many, many patients who have cured their chronic pain and other ailments by reprogramming their brain and addressing the root cause of their suffering - their minds (including feelings, stressors, etc).
The author does mention meditation, CBT and other more holistic approaches, but quickly dismisses them, saying they typically don't provide substantial benefit. This angers me. I believe this is such a missed opportunity to bring awareness to a real solution to chronic pain, not just awareness to the problem itself. The author even goes as far to detail very obvious examples of mind body syndrome, stating that one patient's pain completely vanished out of nowhere, or that two people can experience pain very differently for no good reason. To me, this is further evidence for mind body syndrome - unexplained differences in our response to pain or timing of pain validates the fact that we need to look inwards to address the origination of this seemingly unexplainable phenomena. Bold statement: More taxpayer dollars funding pain research to enable more R&D in the wrong areas of pain research will be a futile and costly effort. I work in biotech, and while I certainly believe many companies do truly want to make a difference in people's lives, I cannot deny how the biotech funding model biases companies to focus on profits. Daily medications = profits. There is no real incentive to treat our emotions seriously. How would shareholders get paid if millions of people with chronic pain, IBS, insomnia, acne, etc simply cured themselves from the inside, on their own? How ridiculous is it that this TMS wiki, or one book by Dr. Sarno or Alan Gordon has the potential to heal someone at an infinite return on investment, and yet there are billions of dollars poured into treating the body as entirely separate from the mind?
Clearly, this article has triggered something in me. I've never been more passionate about anything in my life - TMS, mind body syndrome, pain reprogramming - whatever you want to call it - is real. It is not one tool in a toolbox to treat a whole host of conditions, it is the ultimate tool. I want to grab people by the shoulders on the street and shake them until the message finally lands. I feel that we are in this figurative valley of death, where one side is focused on our mind through meditation & stress-relief, but mostly as an aid to be even more productive in our capitalist-centric jobs. The other side is biotech research and drug development for diseases of the body. There is no linking of the two sides, no bridge connecting chronic diseases with our minds. Certainly there has been progress, and I do recognize this TMS wiki and community is awesome. But I want more - I want full-scale reprogramming of the healthcare system. I want doctors to take life stressors seriously, to say no to pain killers, even better ones, without first addressing someone's emotions. I want patients to think mental, rather than physical. I want my first reaction when I am bloating, or in pain, or having a fit of insomnia, or experiencing acne, to seriously look inwards. I know I am preaching to the choir here.
I read the above article this morning, in which the author and chronic pain sufferer details how chronic pain is neglected in the heatlhcare industry. While I certainly applaud that the author is at least bringing awareness to chronic pain and validating those who have been overlooked, I believe the author completely missed the mark on the solution. She reiterates how pain is not well-understood and that precision medicine, in the form of more drugs & pills, bring hope to the field. She applauds Vertex Therapeutics for a novel approach to pain killers. There is absolutely no mention of mindbody syndrome or Dr. Sarno, or the many, many patients who have cured their chronic pain and other ailments by reprogramming their brain and addressing the root cause of their suffering - their minds (including feelings, stressors, etc).
The author does mention meditation, CBT and other more holistic approaches, but quickly dismisses them, saying they typically don't provide substantial benefit. This angers me. I believe this is such a missed opportunity to bring awareness to a real solution to chronic pain, not just awareness to the problem itself. The author even goes as far to detail very obvious examples of mind body syndrome, stating that one patient's pain completely vanished out of nowhere, or that two people can experience pain very differently for no good reason. To me, this is further evidence for mind body syndrome - unexplained differences in our response to pain or timing of pain validates the fact that we need to look inwards to address the origination of this seemingly unexplainable phenomena. Bold statement: More taxpayer dollars funding pain research to enable more R&D in the wrong areas of pain research will be a futile and costly effort. I work in biotech, and while I certainly believe many companies do truly want to make a difference in people's lives, I cannot deny how the biotech funding model biases companies to focus on profits. Daily medications = profits. There is no real incentive to treat our emotions seriously. How would shareholders get paid if millions of people with chronic pain, IBS, insomnia, acne, etc simply cured themselves from the inside, on their own? How ridiculous is it that this TMS wiki, or one book by Dr. Sarno or Alan Gordon has the potential to heal someone at an infinite return on investment, and yet there are billions of dollars poured into treating the body as entirely separate from the mind?
Clearly, this article has triggered something in me. I've never been more passionate about anything in my life - TMS, mind body syndrome, pain reprogramming - whatever you want to call it - is real. It is not one tool in a toolbox to treat a whole host of conditions, it is the ultimate tool. I want to grab people by the shoulders on the street and shake them until the message finally lands. I feel that we are in this figurative valley of death, where one side is focused on our mind through meditation & stress-relief, but mostly as an aid to be even more productive in our capitalist-centric jobs. The other side is biotech research and drug development for diseases of the body. There is no linking of the two sides, no bridge connecting chronic diseases with our minds. Certainly there has been progress, and I do recognize this TMS wiki and community is awesome. But I want more - I want full-scale reprogramming of the healthcare system. I want doctors to take life stressors seriously, to say no to pain killers, even better ones, without first addressing someone's emotions. I want patients to think mental, rather than physical. I want my first reaction when I am bloating, or in pain, or having a fit of insomnia, or experiencing acne, to seriously look inwards. I know I am preaching to the choir here.
