Chronic Pain
- How can someone appear healthy and yet, be in chronic pain?
- Can the invisibility of chronic pain be explained?
- How can two people experience the same injury and have vastly different outcomes?
- Does chronic pain occur spontaneously or is chronic pain the culmination of a series of long-term subclinical events?
Many of these unanswered questions involving chronic pain are embedded in the three different scenarios outlined below.
Let’s set the scene … two people walk into a coffee shop (no joke). Old friends who haven’t been in contact for five years. In the picture, Person A is on the left. Person B is on the right.
Scenario One: (both appear healthy and neither have any experience with chronic pain)
- Both appear perfectly fine to each other and others in the shop.
- They chat for an hour or so catching up and discover that each others lives are going great.
- A short time later, they’re both involved in a low-speed motor vehicle accident.
- They’re both diagnosed with minor whiplash injuries.
- Person A basically walks it off, the accident is a non-issue.
- Person B falls into the system and receives various forms of care. The condition escalates. At the six-month point, the label of chronic pain appears. A diagnosis of fibromyalgia follows approximately three years later.
Scenario Two: (Person B has been in chronic pain for about 3 years.)
- Both appear perfectly fine to each other and others in the shop.
- They chat for an hour or so catching up and Person B only speaks of things that are positive, never mentioning the struggles associated with chronic pain.
- Person A leaves unaware that Person B has any health issues at all.
- Person B leaves and is physically exhausted for the next few days, recovering from the visit to the coffee shop.
Scenario Three: (Person B has been in chronic pain for about 3 years.)
- Both appear perfectly fine to each other and others in the shop.
- Person B spends the majority of the visit recounting the journey from health to chronic pain. The conversation covers all the appointments, the doctors, the misdiagnosis, the treatments, the frustrations, the stress and the financial difficulties associated with chronic pain.
- Person A is focused on the fact that Person B looks perfectly fine.
- Over time the relationship eventually dissolves.
The above scenarios generate many questions and evoke a variety of emotional responses. By using basic science and tracing out pain from beginning to end, this website will illuminate both the academic and emotional components of this globally expanding health issue.