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Why I left my tech job to work on chronic pain

(sailhealth.substack.com)
333 points glasscannon | 1 comments | 04 Jul 25 12:50 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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kianN ◴[04 Jul 25 14:59 UTC] No.44465131[source]▶
“As pain becomes chronic, it is increasingly associated with activity in the affective and motivational systems tied to avoidance and less closely tied to systems encoding nociceptive input” [1]

I’ve been on the slippery slope of chronic pain. Minor post surgery issues caused me to change my routine and avoid certain activities which only exacerbated the issues, which led to more avoidance. Eventually I couldn’t walk.

The American medical system is very focused on avoiding health issues that show up on mri, rather than quality of life health. But quality of life issues quickly become serious.

I think the middle ground of activity: not all out intense as if you are healthy, but also not avoiding movement is so challenging to find for many people but also so crucial. A lot of chronic pain for myself and I suspect for many others could be avoided with short and quick combination of therapy and daily movement. So simple but so challenging to effectively identify and allocate resources.

Not suggesting this is the total solution but it’s the pathway that I took to return to activity and I’ve seen it help a number of my friends as well.

[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8482298/

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glasscannon ◴[04 Jul 25 16:05 UTC] No.44465686[source]▶
> used me to change my routine and avoid certain activities which only exacerbated the issues, which led to more avoidance. Eventually I couldn’t walk.

Anecdotally, I had a phase where pretty much the same thing happened to me with the Achilles (+ calf/ankle) flare-ups I was having (during this part of my chronic journey). Eventually got through it by doing small walks around my home, then outside but keeping the frequency high each day (i.e. instead of 1 "long" walk, doing 3-4 short ones). I.e. Desensitisation / daily movement

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1. kianN ◴[04 Jul 25 16:11 UTC] No.44465742[source]▶
Splitting up activity to bite sized chunks was critical for me as well. It prevents over straining but I think more importantly it also prevents you from being stagnant for an extended period of time.