Mystery Pain: Another One of Those Dirty Little Secrets
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“Acute and chronic pain affects large numbers of Americans, with approximately 100 million U.S. adults being burdened by chronic pain alone. The annual, national economic cost of chronic pain is estimated to be $560 – 635 billion. For many patients, treatment of pain is inadequate not just because of uncertain diagnoses and societal stigma, but also because of shortcomings in the availability of effective treatments and inadequate patient and clinician knowledge about the best ways to manage pain.” Pain in America: A Blueprint for Transforming Prevention, Care, Education, and Research. The government’s attempt to get a handle on the pain problem
I recently received an email from a woman who wanted me to diagnose her “MYSTERY PAIN” from a couple of brief online conversations —- and was ticked off at me when I told her I could not help (HERE). Trying to figure out some of these CRAZY PROBLEMS is tough enough with a patient sitting in front of me that I can talk to and examine, let alone ‘guessing‘ after a couple short paragraphs from an email.
You see; “Mystery Pain” is exactly that — pain that presents itself as a diagnostic mystery (many of our patients have been seemingly everywhere and tried seemingly everything before I ever see them). In many cases I can figure these out (take a look at our VIDEO TESTIMONIAL PAGE to see what I mean). Sometimes I can’t. Either way, this problem of Mystery Pain (the medical community calls it MUPS or Medically Unexplained Physical Symptoms) is more common than most people would care to admit — way more common.
In fact, when you start to read between the lines of the quote above, you will notice that almost 1 in 3 Americans are dealing with some sort of CHRONIC PAIN ISSUE (this actually translates to a whopping 45% of the adult population). No matter how you break this down, these are astounding numbers! Just realize that (again according to the same quote) both doctors and patients are unsure about how to go about dealing with their Chronic Pain — greatly due to the magnitude of “uncertain diagnosis“. Listen; I’m not picking on doctors here. I myself routinely see patients whose pain defies logical explanations. But regardless of how logical or illogical it seems…..
Mystery Pain is Common!
Because of the prevalence of “Mystery Pain” in our nation, I would not even hope to estimate the number of patients here in America that have been riding the MEDICAL MERRY-GO-ROUND for years — or maybe even decades — without any sort of definitive diagnosis.
Unfortunately, most of the time, bucket diagnoses are the rule du jour. You know; those diagnosis that are often just thrown in the “Mystery Bucket” since many practitioners would rather have you feel they know what they are talking about as opposed to shrugging their shoulders and simply telling you that they don’t. Although the following problems certainly exist, many “Mystery Problems” are routinely thrown into the buckets labeled ‘FIBROMYALGIA’, ‘ARTHRITIS’, ‘DJD’, ‘DEPRESSION’. There are myriads of others.
Not only is it easier to label patients and lump them into categories (“crazies,” “malingerers,” “drug-seekers,” “disability-seekers,” “old,” “hopeless,” “bothersome,” and on and on and on), but insurance will only pay if your problem has an ‘official’ diagnosis. Even if that diagnosis is incorrect or very likely CLINICALLY IRRELEVANT (OR HERE). Thus, mystery pain continues, but you are diagnosed with something different by everyone you see.
If you are one of those people dealing with some sort of “Mystery Pain”, it will benefit you to understand a few simple, overarching physiological concepts. The first thing you need to do is to realize is that most (not all, but most) disease processes have a universal cause. This would logically mean that they also have a UNIVERSAL CURE (please understand that the word “cure” in this context is not allowed by the FDA. Thus it is being used in an allegorical sense).
Understand that this is even true for many of you who have spent the better part of your life having your problems blamed on “BAD GENES“.
If you are interested in stopping your pain; even if none of the doctors you have been to thus far have any sort of tangible idea as to what is causing it; you may want to read these posts on INFLAMMATION. Once you figure out the relationship between Inflammation and things like LEAKY GUT SYNDROME, GLUTEN SENSITIVITY, AUTOIMMUNITY, BLOOD SUGAR DYSREGULATION ISSUES, and a wide range of other potentially “mystifying” health problems, you can begin to FORMULATE A PLAN to deal with it.
That’s right. In case you have not yet figured it out, you can’t count on your doctor to solve all your health issues for you. If you want real solutions apart from being given yet another prescription, you are going to have to step outside of the box and do some of the heavy lifting yourself.
The other thing you are going to have to wrap your mind around if you are dealing with various CHRONIC PAIN SYNDROMES is FASCIA. Fascia is the thin, cellophane-like mucousy-slick membrane that adheres not only to muscle, but to practically every other tissue in the body (fascia around the bone – Periosteum, fascia around the nerve – Epineurium, fascia around the heart – Pericardium, fascia around the blood vessels – Tunica Externa, etc, etc, etc).
Fascia has not only been implicated by some brilliant scientists / physicians as being a pertinent player in the CAUSE OF ALL DISEASE (the word “all” was not a misprint), but it also acts as an auxiliary nervous system as well (HERE). And once you realize that Fascia is the single most pain-sensitive tissue in the body, yet can’t be imaged with advanced testing methods such as MRI; you begin to realize how THE MICROSCOPIC SCAR TISSUE KNOWN AS FIBROSIS can be the perfect trigger for Chronic Pain’s “PERFECT STORM“.
If chasing your pain has left you worn out and exhausted physically, mentally, and emotionally, it may be time to do finally do something about it. It may finally be time step out of that box with the comforting name —- EVIDENCE-BASED MEDICINE. Instead of wondering if your problem might be related to Fascia, why don’t you make an appointment to come in and find out.
No; I have not figured out all of life’s mysteries — particularly when it comes to some of the bizarre pain syndromes that people bring me to fix — problems that no one has been able to get a handle on thus far (HERE, HERE, and HERE are a few examples of this phenomenon). However, if I can help you, you will know in A VERY SHORT AMOUNT OF TIME. No games, gimmicks, or trying to up-sell you a drawn out “Treatment Schedule, but an honest attempt to quickly FIGURE OUT THE CAUSE AND RESOLVE YOUR PAIN — even if it is a mystery!
