Novel Research into Management of Chronic Pain

Scientists have located the area in the brain which is affected by placebo medications to make it seem they reduce pain when, in fact, they don't do anything.  Given knowledge of this place they call the 'sweet spot' it means they may be able to tailor other medications to better use it and thus create better pain medications than the frequently-overused opiates.  (Science Daily: Placebo sweet spot for pain relief identified in brain)

This 'sweet spot' is a remarkable thing to the Rockhouse since it's a part of the brain which believes impossible things.  This drug doesn't do anything about pain and yet now it does.  The effect seems much like the way the Mad Hatter works but in this case you can see it.


Pinpointing the sweet spot of the pain killing placebo effect could result in the design of more personalized medicine for the 100 million Americans with chronic pain.  The fMRI technology developed for the study has the potential to usher in an era of individualized pain therapy by enabling targeted pain medication based on how an individual's brain responds to a drug.

The finding also will lead to more precise and accurate clinical trials for pain medications by eliminating individuals with high placebo response before trials.

The scientists discovered a unique brain region within the mid frontal gyrus that identifies placebo pill responders in one trial and can be validated (95 percent correct) in the placebo group of a second trial.

- Science Daily

After a number of motorcycle crashes and the concomitant body wreckage (i.e. almost entirely orthopedic) which came from it, I'm familiar with high end pain at the time and long-term pain as the result.  From that I know, doctors have no idea what to prescribe for it and how can they when pain is a subjective experience.

After the worst crash, I had multiple bones broken in complex ways and I was semi-comatose on two Tilox every four hours plus a little bit of the ganja for as long as I could stay awake in-between (i.e. not long) while I saw some CNN headlines or heard a bit of Tangerine Dream.  That continued for so long the measure of time disappeared into anarchy and I still don't really know but it was months.

With this research, perhaps they will devise something which gives better pain control but without the brain-killing effect of an opiate.  I don't know how much narcotic is in the two Tilox but it was enough to bury me for four hours every time.

The aspect I have related is high end pain when some incident takes place but my shoulder was wrecked and has hurt at varying levels for twenty-five years.  The science relating to the placebo affect may help in addressing that but there's more.

Note:  I am not now nor have I ever been addicted to any kind of narcotic.  I do not take any pain medication other than aspirin and that may not mean much without a recitation of the history of orthopedic smash-ups but that story is boring so, believe it, I've smashed many.

(Ed:  but always creatively smashed!)

Naturally (larfs).

There is also research into spinal cord stimulation (SCS) for pain relief and this may extend to relief in my shoulders and arms as well in future developments.  (Science Daily:  High-frequency spinal cord stimulation provides better results in chronic back, leg pain)

The new 'HF10' technique offers lasting reductions in back and leg pain after other treatments have failed, according to the report by Dr. Leonardo Kapural of the Center for Clinical Research and Carolinas Pain Institute, Winston-Salem, N.C., and colleagues.  They believe that HF10 therapy could have a major impact on the treatment of chronic back and leg pain, and possibly other conditions as well.

- Science Daily

There's some fo' real / zero drug hope for improvement and they can demonstrate the efficacy.  Well.

Read the article for more detail on the experimental process but the punchline is right here.

Further research will determine whether HF-10 is useful for other chronic pain problems as well, such as arm and neck pain. Dr. Kapural and colleagues conclude: "The superior and durable results demonstrated in this study are anticipated to lead to improved long-term cost effectiveness and payer acceptance, making this therapy broadly available to patients suffering from chronic pain."

- Science Daily

In time it may well be a solution to shoulder pain.  Replacing my shoulder went a substantial distance toward reducing pain in the shoulder but it did not eliminate it and an approach something like this one would be tolerable since it does not require long-term use of any pain medication.  There is no blanket condemnation, here at the Rockhouse, for any drug which has even a small psychotropic effect, I simply don't want to be addicted if there's any tiny chance to avoid it.  This protocol appears it may offer exactly that.