3 Reasons Pain Is So Hard To Treat
Even the most casual glance at research into the amount of pain we suffer confirms the truth. We struggle as much now with pain in our backs, joints, spines, and feet as we did with dental decay in the 1600s. But why on earth, in an age of electric vehicles and space travel, do we struggle with old-fashioned pain. The answer to that is a long story, but here we will look at three of the key reasons we struggle so much to manage pain in our modern world.
Number One: Pain is Invisible
It is pretty obvious and easy to diagnose a black eye, even without a medical degree. The same is true if you have eczema, a common cold, a bloody nose, and many other outwardly visible health issues. Pain, on the other hand, is entirely invisible. Not only is pain invisible to the person who is suffering from the pain, but the pain is also invisible to other people and is even often invisible to the eyes and ears of modern medicine. There is no scan or blood test to diagnose you with a migraine. An x-ray or an MRI scan will rarely show you the cause of back pain. If you have heel pain, there is no modern scan that is sensitive enough to show the subtle buildup of scar tissue in your foot, and there was undoubtedly no blood test to confirm the diagnosis. We have a long history of struggling with invisible causes of disease and unwellness.
Up until the last 200 years, millions upon millions of deaths each year at the hands of bacteria and viruses that we didn’t even know existed. Long after figuring out how to defend ourselves from wild animals, we struggled with microbes primarily because we couldn’t see them and didn’t know they existed. This situation is not too dissimilar from where we find ourselves with pain in the 21st century; we cannot see it; therefore, we struggle to manage it. Even the experts struggle to find much agreement over its true causes.
Number Two: Pain is Lifestyle-Related
If you struggle to lose weight, it is pretty common knowledge that it’s at least partly due to your lifestyle. The amount of exercise we get and the types of foods we eat are significant determinants of whether we struggle with weight management. However, when treating pain, we tend to assume that this issue sits in a different pile than weight loss. If, for example, you have a disc injury that needs keyhole surgery or you have torn a ligament in your ankle, you need a doctor. So we can say that some pains are more injury based than lifestyle based.
If you have a great deal of pain that you are struggling with, it likely relates to the levels of stress you live with, the amount of sleep you get, the food you eat, the amount and type of exercise that you take, and a host of other lifestyle factors. However, the most stubborn and chronic pains like back pain, neck pain, headaches, and frozen shoulder tend to be heavily influenced by lifestyle factors. If this is the case, then it may be that you might need to make some changes to fix your pain (Please understand that pointing out that lifestyle plays a part in chronic pain doesn’t imply that it is the whole story. Appropriate treatment, appropriate rehabilitation, genetics, and all injuries can all play a role too).
Number Two: Pain is Lifestyle-Related
If you struggle to lose weight, it is pretty common knowledge that it’s at least partly due to your lifestyle. The amount of exercise we get and the types of foods we eat are significant determinants of whether we struggle with weight management.
However, when treating pain, we tend to assume that this issue sits in a different pile than weight loss. If, for example, you have a disc injury that needs keyhole surgery or you have torn a ligament in your ankle, you need a doctor. So we can say that some pains are more injury based than lifestyle based.If you have a great deal of pain that you are struggling with, it likely relates to the levels of stress you live with, the amount of sleep you get, the food you eat, the amount and type of exercise that you take, and a host of other lifestyle factors. However, the most stubborn and chronic pains like back pain, neck pain, headaches, and frozen shoulder tend to be heavily influenced by lifestyle factors. If this is the case, then it may be that you might need to make some changes to fix your pain (Please understand that pointing out that lifestyle plays a part in chronic pain doesn’t imply that it is the whole story. Appropriate treatment, appropriate rehabilitation, genetics, and all injuries can all play a role too).
Number Three: Pain is Misunderstood
There is no way that we will be able to unpack all how we tend to misunderstand pain in our society in this small blog. So we shouldn’t even try. In our culture, we treat pain as if it’s a disease. We diagnose pain using old-fashioned medical terminology initially developed to diagnose illness. We prescribe painkillers; we work on getting rid of the pain; we use surgery to try and ‘cut the pain out’.
Meanwhile, the most profound truth about pain is that it is a feature, not a bug. Your fire alarm is not a bug. The red lights on your dashboard to tell you you are running out of oil are not a bug. Pain is the body’s warning system, yet we treat it as if it is a disease that must be removed using ‘pain killers’. We have given in to what may be the most profound misunderstanding we could have about pain, and it is just one of many. Emotionally, it’s understandable that we want to get rid of our pain. However, when we allow that feeling of pain to infuse into our healthcare system, we try to resolve the cause instead of fixing the underlying problem. Without understanding pain correctly, we stand very little chance of managing it effectively. So, misunderstanding pain the way we do is one of the key reasons we struggle to treat it effectively.
Number Three: Pain is Misunderstood
There is no way that we will be able to unpack all how we tend to misunderstand pain in our society in this small blog. So we shouldn’t even try. In our culture, we treat pain as if it’s a disease. We diagnose pain using old-fashioned medical terminology initially developed to diagnose illness. We prescribe painkillers; we work on getting rid of the pain; we use surgery to try and ‘cut the pain out’.
Meanwhile, the most profound truth about pain is that it is a feature, not a bug. Your fire alarm is not a bug. The red lights on your dashboard to tell you you are running out of oil are not a bug. Pain is the body’s warning system, yet we treat it as if it is a disease that must be removed using ‘pain killers’. We have given in to what may be the most profound misunderstanding we could have about pain, and it is just one of many. Emotionally, it’s understandable that we want to get rid of our pain. However, when we allow that feeling of pain to infuse into our healthcare system, we try to resolve the cause instead of fixing the underlying problem. Without understanding pain correctly, we stand very little chance of managing it effectively. So, misunderstanding pain the way we do is one of the key reasons we struggle to treat it effectively.
Final Thoughts
The good news is that while pain may be invisible to scans and bloodwork, some people understand it well enough that they can identify the physical causes of your pain and treatment successfully. The other good news is that while pain depends heavily on lifestyle, you don’t necessarily need to reinvent yourself to remove your pain altogether. Often even small changes can bring significant results when combined with the proper treatment. Furthermore, whilst we struggle with understanding pain as a culture, there is already a considerable amount of research that has primarily impacted the truth about pain and is manageable for those who know.
So ultimately, this isn’t a bad news channel. We struggle with pain, yet there is so much hope for pain sufferers because we are getting better and better at managing it even though the uptake of good pain management is systemically a little slow going. If you have any questions regarding chronic pain, don’t hesitate to give Featherston Street Pain Clinic a call on 04 385 6446
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