The myth: If the pain has lasted years and the scans are clean and the medications did not work, there is nothing left to try.
What the evidence says: This is the myth that does the most damage, because it ends the conversation.
Two examples from the evidence base, both systematic reviews rather than single studies.
A Cochrane review of psychological therapies for chronic pain in adults — the most rigorous form of evidence synthesis available — found benefits for cognitive behavioural therapy on pain, disability, and distress compared with usual care. The effects are modest. They are also real, and they persist after treatment ends. “Modest but durable” is, for a condition that has lasted years, not a small thing.
A 2025 meta-analysis in the European Journal of Pain examined aerobic exercise prescription for pain reduction in fibromyalgia — a condition long treated as untreatable — and found evidence for pain reduction.
Neither of these is a cure, and neither should be oversold. Chronic pain is genuinely hard, and anyone promising resolution is selling something.
But “no cure” and “nothing can be done” are different statements, and collapsing them is how people end up withdrawing from care entirely. Between cure and nothing sits a large territory: better function, better sleep, fewer flare days, more capacity for the things that matter.
That territory is where most of pain medicine actually operates. It is also, not coincidentally, where most pain research is aimed.
What we study:
- Pain and Aging
- Chronic Pain Risk Factors
- Pain and the Brain
- Musculoskeletal Pain
- Pain and Exercise
- Non-Medical Treatment of Pain
Prefer to talk to a person? Call 352-273-5967 or email PRICE-CTSI@ufl.edu.
UF Study ID IRB201400126
References
- Williams ACC, Fisher E, Hearn L, Eccleston C. Psychological therapies for the management of chronic pain (excluding headache) in adults. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2020 Aug 12;8(8):CD007407. https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD007407.pub4
- Casanova-Rodriguez D, Ranchal-Sanchez A, Rodriguez RB, Jurado-Castro JM. Aerobic Exercise Prescription for Pain Reduction in Fibromyalgia: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Eur J Pain. 2025 Feb;29(2). https://doi.org/10.1002/ejp.4783
- PRICE Research Registry recruitment materials, UF Study ID IRB201400126. IRB-approved; supplied by site owner. https://is.gd/PRICE