Drugs are healthier for the bottom line than for pain

There is a disease called fibromyalgia whose existence is questioned by a fair number of the medical profession. The pharmaceutical company Pfizer says it has a cure for it, according to the New York Times. So here we have a disease which might not exist, but there is a definite pharmaceutical cure for it?

Far be it for me to question whether the affected, and they seem to be predominantly middle-aged women, suffer from the pain of this disease, even though it cannot be determined where the pain is coming from. It seems they most definitely do suffer pain.

The question in my mind is more the scale of the intervention by the drug company that brings out medication to treat something that might not even be treatable by virtue of the fact that the disease does not exist or the basis for the illness is still unknown. As it doesn’t know what causes the pain, the reasons for it could be quite different to what Pfizer might be treating.

At the same time, an article appears in the Independent online that discusses the possibility whether pain could be all in the mind. The story discusses twin doctors who decided to conduct an experiment using themselves as the guinea pigs.

Off they went to a Hindu festival in Malaysia where during the ritual people pierce themselves and claim that they feel absolutely no pain. The Western doctors, armed with healthy scepticism, went along to try it out.

One of the twins prepared himself for the event by taking part in the pre-event Hindu rituals. The other one arrived to the piercing event with no preparation but a sizable hangover. Strangely enough the twin who had gone into the preparation felt more pain than the one with the hangover. Nothing like a good bit of alcohol to anaesthetise oneself!

But what the twins did find was that participants seemed to enter some kind of trance state and that they definitely did not seem to suffer from much pain. Their conclusion, as semi-scientific as it might seem, was that pain was based in the brain.

They also maintain that with the experience gained while treating patients, they have noticed that some people are able to cope with pain much better than others. Somebody with a sprain might be vomiting and pale-faced, whereas somebody else with a far more vicious injury might be suffering far less.

I recall an incident myself where my elder daughter at age four or so had run into a sharp window frame in her rush to get to the local library. Those were the days when kids were excited to go and get a book! When the doctor was stitching up her forehead, on seeing my face he ordered me to lie down because I was about to faint. Talk about transference of pain.

The other fairly good pointer about pain and its existence is with regards to experiments that have been done showing the placebo effect. This is where patients cease to feel pain, even though the pills they are taking have no medication in them. Sugar pills, so to speak.

A further fascinating study is by neurologist VS Ramachandran, who has conducted extensive research into the pain people experience in their phantom limbs. People with amputated limbs such as arms and legs may feel pain in these limbs, even though they no longer exist. Watch his excellent presentation here.

What he has discovered is that the person’s brain requires re-education so that it understands that there is no limb left to feel pain. In the same way doctors have recently been prescribing cognitive behavioural therapy. Psychologists treat patients to “break” the pain pathway to the brain.

If one looks at these few points, then it seems as if the whole question of pain could be quite an open area of science with many more solutions possible than allowing a profit-seeking drug company to “invent” a drug for a pain of which nobody knows the origin. Where are the business ethics here, people?