Are you in pain?

[longknife]

Try psychotherapy.

There are 100 million Americans who suffer from chronic pain, and an unknown number of them are like Golson, with back pain, neck pain, fibromyalgia symptoms, or other forms of pain that have no diagnosed physical cause.

It’s not that their pain is “in their heads.” The truth is much more nuanced: All pain can have both physical and psychological components. But the psychological component is often dismissed or never acknowledged.

Big pharma won’t like this as they make unknown billions every year selling pain meds.

Pain can be manufactured in your head and in your body

Pain, explained

Psychotherapy helps you tell a new story about pain

The best evidence base is for cognitive behavioral therapy

(Psychological treatments are no cure-all for chronic pain.)

Psychological therapies can get better — and so can access to them

(There’s still a lot researchers don’t know…)

We need medical and psychological treatments for pain. But we also need to recognize that medical treatments have been overused.

The whole thing @ 100 million Americans have chronic pain. Very few use one of the best tools to treat it. - Vox - Pocket

 

[luchitociencia]

Your advice might work with some people but I don't buy it.

The pain in my body is professional and knows how to make me change my attitude at its will. So I have had to study a strategy to diminish its effects. I suffered an accident several years ago which caused me a cracked vertebrae at the middle of my back and a collapsed disc at the lower area. The disc, according the MRI ended flat as a coin. I became about one inch shorter as a secondary consequence.

So, after refusing a surgical solution I opted for pain killers when I need them, and only two steroids treatments one after three years from the another. I stop the steroids because feeling no pain at all caused me to do more heavy work which caused more damage to the already damaged back.

So, feeling pain and controlling it at a certain level has been the best solution for me.

Today I live a normal life, I walk normal, do things as everybody does but can't run anymore but very short distances like crossing fast the street, and avoid any heavy work. Can bike for miles but I must always be cautious about my movements.

The "psychological" area was solved with a simple method: Distraction.

You get busy and pain will diminish a lot.

And if getting busy in your job is the cause of pain, then change your job. It is dumb continuing working in a task that will cause damage to your body. If the other job pays less, then say, "hell", your health is first, just take it and you better start to be happy with your new health condition and your new job.

Having chronic pain will never become a win win situation because the body has a problem and doctors can't feel what you feel, actually no one does. Then, the best solution is an agreement, gaining and losing, a deal you must make with your body.

In the article there is an issue which have not been mentioned. And is about pain which you won't feel but that will affect your personality.

This kind of pain is usually found in older people and people with chronic diseases. The affected individual will become a grumpy person (old people) or an alcoholic (usually homeless people). The first ones will groan all the time, and the second ones try to use alcohol as pain killers.

A 35 years old guy I knew for many years, was more nicer than Santa in the Mall, and suddenly became a mean person. For the ones who knew him for years, it was strange such a change in him. Luckily he went to his annual health check and the doctor found a liver infection. Because some symptoms didn't show up, he never knew about his problem. After the treatment of two weeks, he was the nicer person he always was. He consciously never felt pain, but his physical brain and body did it.

I guess that psychology might work mostly for identifying the pain only, because from 100 million of people suffering it, I doubt than more than 5% will be in need psychological treatment, and I think sometimes I'm very generous with my numbers.

 

[fncceo]

Modern psychological treatments are just as pharmaceutical these days as their biological counterparts. The largest difference is, the mechanisms and long term effects of psych drugs are less well known today that traditional biological drugs.

Psychology is very much in its infancy when compared to biological medicine.