Winter 2022

The journey of living with chronic pain – with its roadblocks, pitfalls, and detours—can be next to impossible to understand for those who aren’t walking its path.

With the prevalence of chronic pain in the United States—affecting at least 50 million people, 20 million of whom experience high-impact chronic pain that affects their day-to-day life and ability to work – and the challenges and cost inherent in treating it, a significant key is preventing it in the first place.

While the core tenets of chiropractic treatment involve belief in the efficacy of spinal manipulation, the frequently interdisciplinary aspect of chiropractors’ care may be one of the main reasons people seek them out.

Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. The five stages of grief were introduced by psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in 1969 to describe the grieving process when you lose someone. But what about when you lose yourself?

Sean Mackey, MD, PhD, has seen a lot of people with pain. He knows that many of them feel marginalized, ignored, and untreated.

Sharon Field, 63, has managed her debilitating back pain and osteoarthritis for almost two decades with prescribed opioids. But when she had a knee replacement surgery scheduled for the summer of 2022, she knew her pain would increase for a while.

Virtual reality (VR) for pain control dates back to at least the 1990s, when researcher Hunter Hoffman at the University of Washington provided burn victims with a chilled environment and VR headsets that allowed them to move through an “icy” world, throwing virtual snowballs at virtual penguins.

Individuals facing a lifetime of chronic pain – and their loved ones—often seek new ways to cope, particularly when medical care doesn’t completely ease their pain.

In the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, the first major federal legislation to address the opioid crisis, Congress included one provision on pain management. It directed the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary to appoint a panel of the nation’s foremost experts in pain management to report on the best ways to manage pain now, to pinpoint gaps in pain care—and to offer recommendations to fill them.

Most people never give a second thought to the months, years, and even decades it may take for a new drug to pass stringent Food and Drug Administration (FDA) standards. There are countless safeguards and testing processes involved in developing a new medication or device that ensure an approved drug works as advertised and doesn’t cause harm.

Navigating the landscape of complementary or alternative therapies for chronic pain can be overwhelming.

Nearly every person with chronic pain has been told, “You’ll feel better if you exercise.” But simply telling people to be physically active when they have untreated pain or unaddressed trauma often isn’t helpful. It can make people feel like they’re not seen and, often, the activities suggested to them by providers seem daunting and implausible.