Chronic pain affects 10%-25% of adults in the United States. Two thirds of these individuals report that pain has prevented them from working and has severely impacted their quality of life, two thirds report that they have been experiencing chronic pain for five years or longer, and three quarters of those suffering from chronic pain are depressed. We currently have many ways to treat pain, from opiates to surgery, which often come along with unwanted side effects, are unnecessarily invasive, and are limited in their effectiveness, leaving many people without relief from pain or experiencing unwanted side effects of drugs.
Macayla L. Donegan (Sat,) studied this question.