There is an excellent recent NY Times Magazine article by Jennifer Kahn, entitled Chronic Pain is a Hidden Epidemic. It’s time for a Revolution. (the link will take you through the paywall).
Many of my clients experience chronic pain. It is good to see the issue starting to get the attention it deserves from the medical and scientific community.
The article states that pain was traditionally considered part of the healing process, and expected to disappear after an injury healed. Doctors were mystified by persistent pain. Contributing to the problem is the fact that there is no way to observe a patient’s pain or objectively measure it. So patients were often not taken seriously when they complained of chronic pain.
Researches are now beginning to understand that chronic pain can be a disorder of the central nervous system, and can be triggered anywhere along the pain-signaling nerve chain that runs to the brain. That is a big shift in thinking, and offers hope through targeting medications for those experiencing chronic pain. That’s the good news.
The bad news for those applying for disability due to chronic pain is that the Social Security disability system is an inherently skeptical system. Particularly at the DDS levels of initial and reconsideration review, chronic pain is not given enough weight – even when the cause of the pain is apparent. In cases where the reported pain is disproportionate to the perceived cause, or the precise cause is unknown, the chronic pain is often discounted altogether. The problem is compounded by the fact that there is no objective way to measure a person’s pain level.
The situation usually improves at the hearing level, when an administrative law judge will listen to your testimony and make a decision.