Thanks for the post, this is an important and under-researched topic.
Examples include some well-known conditions (chronic migraine, fibromyalgia, non-specific low-back pain), as well as many lesser-known ones (trigeminal neuralgia, cluster headache, complex regionary pain syndrome)
Some of these well-known chronic pain conditions can be hard to diagnose, too. Chronic pain conditions like fibromyalgia, ME/CFS, rheumatoid arthritis, and irritable bowel syndrome are frequently comorbid with each other, and may also be related to depression and mental health disorders. This overlap probably makes it harder for doctors to tease out the root cause of patients’ symptoms.
As an anecdote, a close relative spent around a year bouncing around various doctors before she got a useful diagnosis, and even then the recommended therapies didn’t help much. So far, her pain is managed best by a diet she found on the internet herself.
I speculate that conventional medicine’s relative lack of machinery for identifying and treating some of these chronic illnesses may cause some patients to turn to pseudoscience instead—which could be another downstream harm of neglecting chronic pain treatments. (I haven’t tried to look for evidence for/against this conclusion.)
Thanks for the post, this is an important and under-researched topic.
Some of these well-known chronic pain conditions can be hard to diagnose, too. Chronic pain conditions like fibromyalgia, ME/CFS, rheumatoid arthritis, and irritable bowel syndrome are frequently comorbid with each other, and may also be related to depression and mental health disorders. This overlap probably makes it harder for doctors to tease out the root cause of patients’ symptoms.
As an anecdote, a close relative spent around a year bouncing around various doctors before she got a useful diagnosis, and even then the recommended therapies didn’t help much. So far, her pain is managed best by a diet she found on the internet herself.
I speculate that conventional medicine’s relative lack of machinery for identifying and treating some of these chronic illnesses may cause some patients to turn to pseudoscience instead—which could be another downstream harm of neglecting chronic pain treatments. (I haven’t tried to look for evidence for/against this conclusion.)