Chances are, you or someone you know suffers from chronic pain. That’s the kind that persists for three months or longer. It’s often treated with surgery, injections, and narcotics. However, psychiatrist Daniel Amen developed a program that could potentially minimize or even eliminate the need for those treatments.
Back Pain
More than one if five Americans suffer with some type of ongoing pain such as knee pain or neck pain. The most common form is back pain. When a patient sees a physician for chronic pain, the doctor often orders an MRI for the patient, and if it indicates abnormalities such as spinal stenosis, degenerative or herniated discs, surgery tends to be the recommendation.
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Dr. Amen told CBN News, however, when it comes to MRIs, the results can be misleading.
“Eighty percent of people my age, I’m 70, have abnormal back MRIs who have no pain at all,” he said. “Because whenever it’s your neck, it’s your knee, it’s your back, you go get an MRI, they’re always abnormal.”
To understand why people with abnormal MRIs can live pain-free, Dr. Amen examined where it all takes place – the brain.
“Most people don’t know that pain is ultimately processed, and lives, in your brain,” he said, pointing out the hundreds of thousands of SPECT brain scans at Amen Clinics.
Dr. Amen said the reason so many people with abnormal MRIs live pain-free is because healthy brains can develop workarounds.
“Your body is meant, as we age, to create routes around the pain and heal,” he said. “So if you get that one idea in your mind, ‘God created my body to heal,’ that helps.”
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Reprinted with permission from cbn.com. Copyright © 2026 The Christian Broadcasting Network Inc. All rights reserved.
