Chronic pain

Planted Oct 2021 Tended 4 years ago

Contents

Like millions of American adults, I’ve long suffered from chronic back pain, in my case for over a decade. I’ve seen pain-management specialists, internists, physiatrists, orthopedic surgeons, chiropractors, physical therapists, and massage therapists: none have been able to tell me what exactly is wrong and their treatments have at best provided only temporary relief.

I was surprised to learn from the most recent episode of Science Vs of a growing body of research showing that chronic pain (unlike acute pain) may in some cases be mostly or entirely psychological. That’s not to say it’s not real: the pain is definitely real. But all pain originates in the brain, not the body (which is why “phantom limb” sufferers can feel pain in limbs they don’t even have anymore), and chronic pain may be the brain’s continued response to psychological conditions long after the injury itself (if there was one) has fully healed.

John Sarno was a pioneering researcher of a psychological approach to healing chronic back pain, which he called tension myositis syndrome, “a benign (though painful) physiologic aberration of soft tissue (not the spine)…caused by an emotional process.” Despite his remarkable success with patients, Sarno’s work was initially ignored by the field, perhaps because the pathways by which the brain causes chronic pain remained unknown. Dr. Sarno hypothesized that the brain can cause chronic pain in muscles as a way to distract the conscious mind from some repressed source of anger or anxiety by constricting blood vessels near the muscle, inducing mild oxygen deprivation.

From Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection, Dr. Sarno’s advice for his patients is:

DO:

  • Resume physical activity. It won’t hurt you.
  • Talk to your brain: Tell it you won’t take it anymore.
  • Stop all physical treatments for your back—they may be blocking your recovery.

DON’T:

  • Repress your anger or emotions—they can give you a pain in the back.
  • Think of yourself as being injured. Psychological conditioning contributes to ongoing back pain.
  • Be intimidated by back pain. You have the power to overcome it.

Of course, Sarno suggests this course of treatment only after all potential physical sources of pain like injury or congenital abnormality have been ruled out.

Further Reading