San Diego Pain Summit 2016

I’ve delayed writing about the San Diego Pain Summit to allow my thoughts to settle and to come up with a suitable distillation of the event. Good things take time to brew!

Impressions of San Diego – city of warmth and light, food and water and the sea… A lovely place to visit, and one that I would almost be happy to live in. But the setting was the least attractive aspect of this most excellent gathering of pain peeps. For me, first time attendee, it was like a gathering of the best of friends all in one place with plenty of time to geek out on pain science – and to put faces to names that I’m so familiar with that I feel like we’ve been friends for ever!

First off, hat tip to Rajam Roose who single-handedly organised this event. Without her vision and organisational strengths I would have missed a highlight of my career so far! Rajam was the most personable hostess, making sure I was picked up from the airport, fed and then dropped off at the hotel, taking photos to share on Facebook as I JUST GOT OFF THE PLANE after at 19 hour flight from New Zealand. Seriously, Rajam and her wonderful man (and assorted friends both furry and not) made my arrival welcoming and wonderful.

And this is probably one of the nicest things from the whole San Diego meeting – feeling welcomed, at home, and amongst friends. And this despite my being the only occupational therapist at the meeting! Come on, occupational therapists, you really need to get your collective acts into gear! The Pain Summit is probably the only meeting I’ve been to where everyone, no matter what background, whether body-oriented, brain-oriented, disability or function-oriented – is accepted, encouraged and enriched. Occupational therapists would feel right at home.

And now, to review the meeting itself. Well, to be honest, the meeting WAS about the people. The discussions had between different professionals from differing backgrounds and theoretical orientations, all focused on learning more about pain and how to better help people who experience pain. While the speakers were outstanding, without the community discussions, both on and off-line, I think this meeting would be much like any other. The hallmark is that the people who attend are committed, passionate and really think about the meaning of new research and how they can apply it.

I’ve talked about a community of practice before. A community of practice is a group of people who have developed a commonality in how they tackle their work. Where theory and practice are connected in the most intimate ways. Where each piece of evidence is examined in the light of the question ALL research should be evaluated against: So what? So what does this mean for ME? So what can I use from this? So what does it mean that this – and this – are both true? So what questions do I need to ask myself?

The Pain Summit is a place where choices don’t have to be made. It’s designed so that people can attend every session, rather than having to choose a stream (and miss out on the other stream). And one where ethics hold out over money-making. Rajam doesn’t want to have to take sponsorship if this means the Summit has to compromise on any information presented. It’s designed so that clinicians can meet the presenters and talk. Where presenters engage with one another and with the attendees.

The most profound talks for me personally were Lehman’s take on biomechanics – when it applies, and when it doesn’t. Argued from a biomechanical perspective. And Benedetti’s talk on placebo and the mechanisms that skew randomised controlled trials of new pharmacological and surgical agents (yes, I know placebo is a thing affecting ALL treatments, but much more difficult to study in nonpharmacological approaches). I was saddened to hear that yes, if we persist in using the WHO Analgesic Ladder, we may be inadvertently doing harm because repeated ineffective treatments can establish negative expectancies from ALL treatments – hence my take on identifying the pain mechanisms involved and providing targeted therapy specific to those mechanisms rather than a “multimodal” approach that may not provide much at all. The argument Benedetti made was that medications that don’t work create a learning effect in the recipient, reducing the potential for subsequent treatments to be effective. So if you have fibromyalgia, probably the archetypal “central sensitisation” pain problem, treating it with NSAIDs and codeine and other opiates isn’t likely to do anything wonderful – why not begin with the tricyclic antidepressants and gapabentin/pregabalin first?

I also loved Alison Sim’s work on presenting CBT for pain, clear, precise – and engaging. And yes, anyone can integrate it into daily practice.  The appetite for “psychological” approaches amongst this largely hands-on audience was amazing. Kevin Vowles impressive presentation on the futility of many approaches to “get rid of pain” and the usefulness of values-based action (using ACT) (and his wonderful workshop on ACT) made my day. Between them and Sandy Hilton’s discussion of ways to work with people who have pelvic pain, and I began to feel like this group of clinicians really knows that PEOPLE experience pain, not limbs or body parts. And to help PEOPLE we need to BE people – human connectedness is so important.

There were many other talks, but these were the ones that really stood out for me. I’m now impatiently waiting for the video recordings so I can relive the moments of the Pain Summit and pick up on the many, many details of talks I haven’t mentioned. I haven’t mentioned them not because they weren’t great, but because the ones I’ve listed resonated particularly with me in my own orientation.

Next year – will you be there? I hope so – I’ll be there, and I’m looking forward to being amongst friends again – and keeping that discussion going on Facebook, Twitter, SomaSimple in between.