What If Pain Could Be Made Optional? | The Future With Hannah Fry

Pain is a fact of life. For some, it is excruciating and inescapable. But amid the continuing fallout of the opioid crisis, new technologies are being developed to limit and even eliminate pain.

Do you want to know what your future holds? A life beyond 150 years old? A world where computers can read our emotions? A planet transformed by unlimited clean energy? Mathematician Hannah Fry will explore these questions and more.

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[kateapple]

Stop fighting yourself and start fighting for yourself it's a great line

[Nigfis]

Chronic pain had a devastating impact on my life.
At 35, I was a highly skilled tradesman at the peak of my career, but my employers were unaware that every morning I struggled to get out of bed due to excruciating pain. Eventually, I reached a point where I could no longer continue. When I sought help from my doctor, I was completely taken aback when he assumed I was simply seeking morphine. This left me feeling distraught.
After persistent requests, I was finally granted a scan, and the results revealed signs of Osteoarthritis in my spine.
This whole experience taught me that pain is not only a physical sensation but can also be influenced by external factors and other people's perceptions.

I hope that anyone going through a similar journey has better luck than I did.

[FelinAly]

That's some wisdom not far spread, not even in the medical world. Chronic pain really makes your life fall appart, and most doctors don't realize this at all, even call it "psychological issue". Not many people understand what it means to live with strong, chronic pain. It completely depletes you, disables you, but often you cannot see it. You can still walk, talk, even work and people are very sceptical, like "what do you have? you're not in a wheely, how are you disabled?" It's a nightmare and you get little to no support yet.

[pyrethorn]

As someone who's been in constant pain for 10+ years, can confirm that mindset makes a huge difference. On days where I am overall happy, it doesn't hurt as much.

[elsh]

I'm a chronic migraine sufferer and I've gotten so sick of people who say that pain isn't real, it can't be found, and it's just made up / in my head / my perception and nothing more.

I love how this is showing that pain IS real AND psychosomatic. I know that my pain gets worse when I get in a bad headspace. But the pain IS real, nonetheless.

[nidhavellir]

Anyone who romanticizes pain and suffering has never had to live with it.

[lawerancelanham]

Living with chronic pain is no joke. 😢
I need this in a huge way...

[webleaf]

Hannah is such a wonderful guide to these fascinating new concepts!!

[davidkessler]

A mixed bag here. Stopping the pain at source would be a great thing for those whose pain is primarily nociceptive. For those whose pain is primarily brain-generated, the research is not so encouraging. We have known for decades that depression and anxiety make pain worse - this is not news. What isn't mentioned is just how hard it is to not be anxious and unhappy when you're in constant, severe pain. You can't make pain go away by 'thinking happy thoughts' or having a 'better attitude’. Even if you do manage to maintain an unwavering positive disposition (something even people without pain struggle to do), the difference this makes on pain levels and associated disability is not all that much.

The young lady with CRPS, which is a nasty, cruel disease, maintains a positive outlook as far as she is able, and this does her credit. However, you will notice that she is still in excruciating pain (don’t let her smile fool you), unable to work in her former job, and reliant on carers and a wheelchair. This cannot in any way be viewed as an acceptable outcome for chronic pain patients.

I don’t want to hear any more about anxiety, depression, Yoga, Acupuncture or Tai-Chi etc. Chronic pain needs research funding that is commensurate with the scale of the problem, so that we can come up with real, effective solutions.

[krallopian]

At 11:55, the video discusses the possibility of reducing the strength of pain signals within individual neurons, which seems beneficial on the surface. However, as Hannah Fry pointed out earlier, the brain's processing of pain isn't straightforward; it also considers factors like past experiences, emotions, and our current level of focus or distraction. Essentially, the brain already modulates pain signals, adjusting their intensity based on these psychological factors. This leads me to wonder: if we artificially lower the amplitude of pain signals, might the brain simply adapt to this new baseline? And perhaps more critically, could there be an increased sensation of pain when this intervention is absent? Perhaps I should continue watching the rest of the video, it's just that this question seemed crucial, and I wanted to note it down before forgetting (it would pain me to do so!)😅

[brandonthomas]

Hannah Fry is my favorite scientific content creator, by far.

[______IV]

I’m happy the moments when my pain is well managed. When my pain is poorly managed, I’m rarely able to experience much happiness. Please stop shaming people who require opioids to treat their pain.

[QueenetBowie]

Shout out for covering Complex Regional Pain syndrome. I got it after a relatively minor foot injury, messed me up for awhile but compared to a lot of people I got off easy, for some people it’s crippling for life band it’s such a weird and poorly understood thing. Some doctors are very hesitant to diagnose it, I almost didn’t believe it could be a thing when my doctor told me about it bc it’s just so odd. It can be related to nerve damage but it can also be almost like your brain/nervous system just gets confused.. it can even spread to other parts of your body, like if you have it on your right hand, you can eventually get it on your left hand, or foot, etc.

Thank you for bringing attention to it!

[ZeeAzman]

“Queen of pain” is the most badass scientific moniker ever 😅

[atheisthumanist]

I've lived with chronic pain most of my adult life. Double spinal injuries during military service in the mid 80's.
The only thing that's really helped was working with my psychologist. Learned a lot about how we process pain and how important it is to deal with trauma. Thankfully she also provides equine therapy with 2 amazing rescue horses. Horses are one of my fave animals and pain disapears when I'm working with them. Still haven't mastered calling that felling up as needed, but it'll get there with time. Way better than it was prior to starting therapy.

[paulohenriquearaujofaria]

I like Hannah and the way she narrates.

[iOSFan]

Would have been really useful for my mom's cancer pains. I hope we improve human life through this research

[Clearlight]

When the Queen of pain lady said about being happy, less anxious turning the pain response down she said it's calmer, but I heard "it's karma." ie if you're happy, peaceful, your mind creates a less suffering world of experience. So I replayed it with the subtitles on and the subtitles thought she said "it's karma" too ! 16:57

[williamtavaresfardin]

Nem tudo tem solução, mas dá pra seguir em frente...

[one_field]

As someone who has lived with chronic pain since age 13, I really enjoy the "party trick" aspects. When friends who do martial arts want to demonstrate pain-based holds and pressure points, etc, I ALWAYS volunteer and then laugh at them when their holds just literally don't work on me. They're counting on pain to hamper your movements or cripple your reactions, but I live in constant pain, so why should I care about the new, little exogenous pain they're inflicting with whatever joint lock or pressure point trick they're trying? If anything, it's a distracting relief and I feel better! So they blink in consternation while I twist up in pretzels and get out of their holds/locks/whatever, and then I explain that I always hurt, so I don't care about hurting more, or differently.

Same goes for doing manual labor tasks, including carrying heavy objects, while one joint or another is visibly dislocated. People really freak out! I just chuckle and carry on. Like, yep, it hurts, but you know, it always hurts, so why should I care whether the joint is in its socket or not, so long as I keep enough tendon tension and muscle tone to force the limb to operate anyway? Makes no difference to me, if it's going to hurt anyway. It's been that way for decades, so clearly it's not going to improve.

I think a lot of people struggle with pain because they're in the mental headspace where pain is telling them not to do the things they enjoy. A certain level of cavalier "f- this" attitude can be really helpful, so long as we have to live with constant pain. That said, if they ever do release a way to turn off pain, I'm totally excited to try living without pain. I've no idea what that would be like but it sounds wonderful.