Last month TIME published a four part feature entitled Chronic Pain. I found the most interesting part to be Part one, Healing the Hurt. Finding new ways to treat pain. by Alice Park. She points out that 76 million people living in th U.S. are living with chronic pain. See, we aren’t alone! Hehe.

Park discusses quite a bit of fibromyalgia specific research, which I love! Research has shown that people with fibromyalgia typically have lower levels of endorphins than those not living in chronic pain. This prevents us from experiencing as much satisfaction, euphoria and natural pain relief that our body can deliver. Research has also shown that our nervous system may be altered. Park uses the example of stepping on your toe to lessen the pain you are feeling in another part of your body. In most people, the new toe pain would grab the brain’s focus and take some of it off your other hurting body part. In someone with fibromyalgia this process is impaired. We might actually end up feeling more pain, all at once!

The article covers many innovative therapies being studied to treat chronic pain. Through gene therapy research there is hope that the DNA causes for why some people feel more or less pain can be understood and treated. Another therapy involves using functional magnetic resonance images (fMRIs) to help patients retrain and control their brain’s response to pain. The main idea behind this is similar to biofeedback. Patients who don’t respond to any other therapies may one day have the choice to have a therapy that uses concentrated “magnetic fields to target deep-seated pain centers.” This process can help change the nerve pathways in the brain and thus relieve some of the pain. I look forward to seeing what further research says about these therapies.

I was fascinated by the idea Park ended the article with. She discusses how one piece of the chronic pain puzzle may be understanding the changes in the brain. She quotes Dr. David Borsook (Harvard), “Chronic pain really is a disease of the central nervous system, as such, it is a disease that affects the sensory, emotional, motivational, cognitive and modulatory pathways.” He suggests that as these pathways are understood more, new treatments for patients with pain will arise. He thinks that psychiatrists may hold the key to this understanding due to their experience with brain changes caused by other things, like mental illness. I honestly had never thought about psychiatrists being able to help discover better pain treatments. The more specialists that can help piece things together, the brighter the future is, in my opinion!

Which treatment being studied are you most interested in?

Understanding Pain in TIME Magazine