How many times have you heard (or used the phrase) “Getting older isn’t for sissies!”

Typically, when said, it is because as we get older, it takes longer to get things done. We have less energy. And we experience more aches and pains than we used to. Aches and pains in our knees, hip, shoulder, back. 

According to an article published by the Boston University School of Public Health, chronic pain affects 1 in 5 people, or 1.5 billion globally, with the prevalence of it increasing with age. When we refer to chronic pain, it is defined as “pain that lasts more than twelve weeks and may arise without any initial injury.”

If you haven’t experienced chronic pain, it is hard to understand what it feels like and what it does to a person’s quality of life. 

When we have pain, we are guarded and tense our muscles to overcompensate or protect ourselves. Take back pain, for instance. Back pain can emerge without an initial injury and can sometimes occur when we are under stress, 

This is confirmed in an article by Health Partners, Many times, back pain begins to develop with simple, everyday movement rather than an injury or condition. These are often caused by stress, tension, fatigue, inactivity or a new activity that makes your back sensitive to movement.

I listened to a podcast on Feel Better, Live More with Dr. Rangan Chatterjee. He was interviewing Peter O’Sulllivan. What prompted me to want to listen was the title - “The #1 Cause of Chronic Pain & a Decreased Lifespan - Heal Pain Without Medication.” Intriguing, right? 

It was an interesting podcast. When asked what the one thing that Peter could say to the public about pain, Peter responded that there is hope. For anyone who is currently experiencing chronic pain, regardless of where it is in the body, there is power in that message of hope. But I was a bit skeptical. I have known people who have experienced severe back pain. Some have chosen to see chiropractors. Some have had surgery. Back pain is real, and here was this podcast purporting that pain could be healed without medication.

I kept listening. Peter asserted that he has viewed some of the worst looking scans of backs and seen those patients become relatively pain free through his clinical trials. For those with non-pathological back pain (back pain not caused by cancer or a disc pressing on a nerve, for instance, where there is nothing pointing to the cause of the pain), it is possible that their lifestyle and belief system may either hinder or promote relief of that pain, he asserted.

If, in fact, our belief system (the way we think about our situation, or in this case, the way we think about pain), has an influence on how we perceive the pain, then this means that our belief system has control over our physical bodies. I find that fascinating. 

What we think, we become. That phrase is attributed to Buddha.

The more I read and hear, the more I realize the impact of our thoughts on all aspects of our lives. At one point during the podcast, Peter O’Sullivan stated that for a person living with pain if it’s persistent and disabling, it’s deeply emotional. We are a whole person and clinicians should examine the whole person, including the emotions of the patient. 

Peter O’Sullivan’s work includes cognitive functional therapy (CFT), which is a biopsychosocial approach to care in which the person with pain is coached by the clinician over time, where all factors are considered, including the emotional wellbeing of the patient, what stresses they may be under, their resilience, diet, and lifestyle. 

He is famous for breaking down the top ten myths of back pain as printed in 2020 in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. One of those myths, the 10th one listed actually, caught my attention. Myth #10 - Treatments such as strong medications, injections and surgery are effective, and necessary, to treat lower back pain. He’s saying that is a myth. It’s not true, and he goes on to explain why he feels that way.

Peter O’Sullivan and Rangan Chatterjee delved into how the private healthcare system as it currently stands has not been as effective in helping people as it could be. Too often our doctors don’t take the time to listen and tend to be more dismissive, only wanting to treat the immediate problem and quickly usher us out the door. 

They stated that we have a health care system that dictates the amount of time a physician can spend with a patient. In that type of system, it is harder to get to the root cause of a problem since it takes time to explore the different factors that are affecting the patient’s pain. 

As it started, the podcast ended with the message of hope. Peter O’Sullivan said that through his work, they don’t promise a cure. But by understanding how thoughts, emotions, and behaviors influence our pain means that we can shift our thinking to examine the elements in our lives that may help to abate the pain. 

I investigated his website, https://www.evoolvepaincare.academy/patient-resources, and scrolled toward the bottom to find many videos of patient’s stories about their back pain journey with all videos supporting Peter’s research and the way they work to treat the whole patient. If you are living with back pain or know people who are, this podcast may be of interest. It certainly presents an alternative way of thinking.