When pain cannot be explained by a specific disease, the condition is then referred to as chronic “unexplained” pain or fibromyalgia syndrome.
Sadly, many patients who leave a doctor’s office with the explanation that their pain is not a “real” medical problem, sense that they are being dismissed and that their pain is not being validated. They may have even been told that their pain is psychogenic, psychosomatic, functional or … basically just imaginary. To make matters worse, they are informed that other than pain medications, there’s nothing else that can be done to help them. Even though all pharmaceutical interventions offer at best, only temporary relief and at worst, their side-effects often lead to other significant health issues.
Doctors feel they have no other option but to send patients with chronic “unexplained” pain home with a prescription of stronger pain-killers or to a pain clinic for injections; after all, if there is no disease to treat or control, then there’s nothing to fix but the pain itself.
In order to help validate those living with chronic “unexplained” pain, some researchers and doctors and have promoted the idea that since brain changes have been clearly identified in those experiencing chronic pain “…that pain, even if it is unexplained by disease, is itself a disease.” – Ballantyne & Sullivan 2022
The noble justification for this proposal of labeling pain itself as a disease has been to help increase the legitimacy of chronic pain as a clinical problem. It was hoped that this move would result in healthcare providers, researchers and insurance companies to take chronic pain more seriously and potentially advance interventions to cure this debilitating “disease”.
Regrettably, this pain-as-disease idea that was aimed to validate those experiencing chronic pain, has come with an unwanted consequence … See my full VIDEO