From November 14th-16th, 2019, iPain Summit 2019 took place in Los Angeles, CA at the UCLA’s Meyer and Renee Luskin Conference Center. Patient Worthy had the privilege to attend and provide media coverage for this event.
Rare Diseases and Chronic Pain
At Patient Worthy, chronic pain is not necessarily our primary focus, as we strive to cover as many rare diseases as possible regardless of the symptoms that they cause. With that being said, a significant number of rare diseases are long-term illnesses that often have limited treatment options and can’t be cured. As a result, there are hundreds of rare diseases that can inflict chronic pain on patients to varying degrees. An example of a rare pain condition is complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS).
Covering iPain was a unique experience for us as we are often focused on disease-specific conferences that have a narrower scope and subject matter. At the event, we learned that chronic pain is of course much different as it can appear in many ways and can be caused by many different things. However, chronic pain patients have significant overlap with rare disease patients and they face similar challenges.
The Challenges of Chronic Pain
On the surface, chronic pain can seem like a simple issue. Just treat the underlying disease and the pain and other symptoms should go away, right? Well it just isn’t that cut and dry most of the time. Sometimes the underlying condition doesn’t have any available treatments or the therapies that are available aren’t that effective. In some cases, the cause of the pain isn’t even fully understood.
For our rare disease patient readers, these problems probably sound pretty familiar. There is no single solution to chronic pain; medications that help one patient may not benefit another. Many chronic pain patients have tried countless different approaches in an attempt to find relief. This was perhaps best epitomized by a presentation from Dr. Helen Runyan, who discussed a dizzying array of methods that she had tried to use to treat her pain. In many cases, her feedback was similar: many of these options can help, but none have halted her pain completely.
Alternative Medicine
So what do you do if none of the medications that either you get over the counter or that your doctor prescribes you are able to solve your symptoms?
This was another looming challenge that iPain forced us all to consider, and alternative medicine was a common theme throughout the event. A variety of approaches were introduced during the presentations, such as hypnotherapy, acupuncture, bioelectric microcurrent therapy, and medical cannabis. Some may be quick to dismiss these approaches as unscientific or speculative, but if you had chronic pain I think you’d be willing to try just about anything to find relief.
The iPain Summit is organized every year by the International Pain Foundation. To learn more about this organization, click here.
Stay tuned for further articles discussing our time at iPain Summit 2019.
