Stopping Chronic Pain Treatments: A Bold Decision
In this personal narrative, Joanne Smith recounts her decision to halt all physical treatments for chronic pain after more than twelve years on a chronic pain team. Over that period she regularly underwent radiofrequency nerve ablations and steroid injections roughly every eighteen months, which provided only temporary relief in her neck and no lasting benefit for her lower back. Reflecting on these experiences, she now believes much of the relief was due to a placebo effect. Citing advice she had received years earlier from Dr. Sarna to "repudiate the physical," she made a decisive choice to stop all intentional physical interventions, including hot and cold therapies. The video captures her rationale, the emotional weight of the decision, and her hope for a different approach to managing her pain.
