Why I left my tech job to work on chronic pain

Why do all such articles never talk about the meat of the solution? Why do I always feel like I'm being sold something.

Why is it so hard to explain the solution briefly, or directly present it to me upfront. Why does it need so much of mystery around it?

In this article the OP does not even mention "Pain reprocessing theory" which is what they seems to be talking about (based on the study they have linked)

As someone who has overcome chronic pain, and frequently foils acute pain from turning into chronic pain, I started daily joint-mobility exercises from Kelly Starrett's Supple Leopard book (and his MWOD videos on YouTube) to achieve this. Physical therapy needs daily, incremental progress, which you can do yourself.

I've been guilty of this myself for our neurotech sleeptech company, and I still owe HN a better blog post clarifying our positioning.

I think there are a few reasons you see this in health/medical community.

1) just helping people understand a different view of the problem is often enough for one blog post. Stuffing new way to look at solution and new solution together can sometimes be a bit much.

2) we have to be cautious from a regulatory perspective about what we say, and sometimes in being too cautious don't give the people who REALLY want to understaned the processes enough to go on. For our company, I used to say things like "we can increase the synchronous firing of neurons which results in reduced 15^% drop in early night cortisol, and 14.5% increase in hrv....".

But prior to regulatory approvals, we can't point directly to neurological or physiological processes, which means we kinda end up talking around the solution a bit.

3) in marketing, they want to connect and build an audience, so they are dripping more information over time. One post gets feedback and interest from one group, then you do another, and another. It's about building the community and connecting with people, not just a "here's a problem, do the thing, thanks". If you are trying to build a business, you probably need to get in front of people 7-8 times, particularly if you're taking a new approach to a problem, to build trust and brand recognition.

It's not the best, but it is the way the world works.

Hey algo_lover, OP here.

Just woke up and this post's traction has surpassed my wildest imagination.

Similar to what pedalpete has said, I'm looking to release this in parts to ensure:

1. I am not overwhelming people and losing their interest

2. Quality remains as high as possible (I invested only a few hours into this last week as an experiment). I want this blog to be the most easily accessible, engaging + factual source for chronic pain sufferers. That requires sufficient time to nail (and it seems like I've struck a chord so far).

3. Get signals from readers week by week and tailor to the audience which is forming.

This will help me helpfully reach the most pain sufferers.

RE feel like you're being sold something. This series will cover what is needed to recover from chronic pain and be offered for free. I am looking to build a product eventually (why wouldn't I want help as many people as posssible while building a career which does good - I don't believe they're exclusive), but the information in this blog will remain free.

RE not calling out Pain reprocessing theory/therapy - I'll go through the post today and see if it makes sense to add this into #1 (or if it's better for #4). It's not something I consciously omitted when writting this post last week.

Thanks for the comment!

As someone who has been mitigating and managing chronic pain for 25 years, with respect IMO your expectation is unrealistic.

There isn't a "solution" - you're looking at a life-long mitigation and management strategy that will not be "brief".

The time commitment typically goes up as one ages. I could spend 40 hours a week on nutrition, exercise and relaxation if I was trying to optimize for chronic pain reduction.

But then nothing else would get done.

Thanks for wanting to help, but:

1. You've lost my interest with no "meat", as the GP stated.

2. There is no "quality" in using a couple thousand words of text to say "I'll be writing about what helped with my chronic pain over time".

3. Here's the signal: I am not in for "weekly" sessions. I do have chronic pain, but what you want to be producing is utterly incompatible with what I need.

Went hospital, took medication. No magic. That's the cause

Chronic pain is complicated. There is no universal solution. Sometimes there's no solution at all.

Hi algo_lover, I also noticed that about the post. The approach being discussed is "pain reprocessing therapy". It was described in a book called The Way Out, by Alan Gordon and Alon Ziv. Here's my short summary of the book:

- Chronic pain is often generated by the brain, not any actual injury. Not always, but often. Especially if it gets worse during stress or high alert, and especially if the feeling of pain becomes connected to your fear of that same pain.

- In periods when pain is high, you need to kinda nurse it. Lie down, put warm water on it, whatever it takes. Don't try to power through the pain. Avoid situations where you have to power through.

- In periods when pain is moderate or low, take short sessions to examine it. "Ok, this isn't a threatening injury, this is just a sensation. Where is it located? What shape? Hot or cold? More dull or more like tingling?" Etc, etc. Don't hyperfocus, just explore the feeling in a light and curious way.

This sounds LLMlish

I'm a human and was just trying to write the most helpful reply to parent, but now that you point it out, yeah.

I am also a fellow human.

Me too, really...

Your reply seems disingenuous, like marketing-speak. You're telling people "I have a solution to your chronic pain" and then they read the article only to find out "tune in next week for the next bread crumb".

Chronic pain drives people to suicide. You're toying with people's emotions.