Research is helping end debilitating chronic pain

“I had surgery 20 years ago on my back because of chronic pain that was the result of an injury. But it never got better… The pain got so bad that my whole life was centred around how I could do things while taking their effect on my back into account.”- Robert, research participant

Everyone experiences pain at some point in their lives. But for some people, that pain takes over and becomes a constant.

Chronic pain has been one of the most misunderstood and hardest to treat medical conditions – until now.

Thanks to innovative research at NeuRA, we are finally learning what causes chronic pain and best of all, how to treat it.

Robert, one of the participants of this research, suffered from chronic back pain for more than 20 years. Like many people with this condition, pain was a constant presence that limited his quality of life. Everything from his work to his relationship with his kids was affected.

“When you’re in constant pain, it does affect you,” Robert said. “You're always thinking, ‘Oh, if I do that, I'm going to be in pain. If I get up and do some gardening, I'm going to be in pain.’ It was almost like I identified physical activity with pain, and the trial helped me break out of that cycle.”

Thanks to our research, Robert was able to end his chronic pain and transform his life. Today, he is active again and living a life free of pain – working at his desk and playing with the kids, just like his old self. He did it through Resolve, our innovative non-drug treatment for chronic pain.

Supporting NeuRA medical research – like that which resulted in the development of the Resolve program – can change the future for people like Robert.

Our Resolve program is a randomised controlled trial – the best way to discover whether a treatment really works. The research team compared their new treatment for chronic pain in a sample of patients with a placebo treatment in a second group, with outstanding results.. The new treatment – which involves non-invasive techniques like brain stimulation, movement training, and pulsed electromagnetic energy to the lower back – was proven to work.

“It’s changed my life without a shadow of a doubt. I went from always worrying about my back to running and swimming again. I got my fitness back and started to feel like the old Rob resurfaced.”

Research is the key to answering some of the most significant medical challenges of our times. Your donation today will fuel more randomised controlled trials to transform more lives.