Sufferers of chronic pain have long been told it's all in their head. We now know that's wrong

[Jilly_in_VA]

It started with headaches and neck pain, but no sooner had Tricia Kalinowski’s physiotherapist come up with a strategy to tackle these problems, then another area of her body would start to hurt: her lower back, her hip or her jaw.

“The physio was chasing the pain up and down my body,” says Kalinowski, 60, from Minneapolis, US. Eventually, she was referred to an oral surgeon, who believed the root cause of these issues was a problem with one of the joints in her jaw, so she underwent surgery to replace a thumbnail-sized disc.

Unfortunately, the replacement was defective, triggering an immune reaction that resulted in the loss of several inches of jawbone. It took 13 rounds of surgery to fix the damage – the last of which was performed in 2015. “The irony to all the surgeries is that I still have headaches, I still have neck pain, and nobody really knows quite what to do about it,” she says.

To most people, pain is an unpleasant but short-lived sensation, occurring as a result of illness or injury. Although some people may experience ongoing or chronic pain, the assumption is there must be some kind of underlying physical injury, such as a crushed nerve, or an angry, inflamed joint.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/jun/28/sufferers-of-chronic-pain-have-long-been-told-its-all-in-their-head-we-now-know-thats-wrong
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This is a long article but worth the time it takes to read it. I'm fascinated with neuroscience and have been since I retired, so I ate it up. I invite anyone with chronic pain, or who knows or lives with someone dealing with it, to read it.