More than 20 percent of U.S. adults—50 million people—live with chronic pain such as spinal disorders and disc disease, pinched nerves, low back pain, neck pain, complex regional pain syndromes, fibromyalgia, shingles, diabetes-caused neuropathies, and arthritic and musculoskeletal conditions, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
People suffering with chronic pain were frequent targets of opioid overprescribing, and many became victims of the opioid epidemic that has swept the world. People suffering from chronic pain have experienced additional stress and forced isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic, which often also brought depression and weight gain.
On the surface, it may look like modern medicine is well-poised to handle pain patients, with its arsenal of high-tech treatments such as spinal fusion and disc surgeries, spinal cord stimulators, steroid and pain-killer injections, nerve ablations (“burning”) and blocks, and, of course, opioid drugs. Yet all is not well in the pain medicine world, and concepts like “wallet biopsy” (in which a patient’s ability to pay shapes their treatment) and “X-ray diagnosis” (in which abnormalities revealed may not even be the pain cause) suggest some of the problems….