This sounds wonderful for chronic pain. Reportedly, only pain neurons are affected. And for joints and other relatively isolated sites, effects can be targeted. So yes, your knee doesn't hurt, and you could injure it worse without the pain feedback. But you'd have ~normal pain sensation elsewhere.
Definitely not without side effects. Loss of pain sensation in parts of the body (such as the knee) can be really scary and potentially lead to permanent damage if the pain feedback loop doesn’t report that it’s being twisted or stressed.
True. But this is for chronic pain. Especially for pain that's caused by damage that's not expected to heal. So if you have constant knee pain, so bad that you can't stand up, the risk of further knee damage is arguably not such a major issue.
However, I can see how this could be misused. People could put themselves at risk for serious injury, in order to get back to work sooner. It's rather the norm for professional athletes, sadly enough. And for many others who do manual labor.
So in such circumstances, it could be horrible. But for those with chronic pain, perhaps a blessing.
> However, I can see how this could be misused. People could put themselves at risk for serious injury, in order to get back to work sooner. It's rather the norm for professional athletes, sadly enough. And for many others who do manual labor.
Sadly, I see some office workers surrounding me who would happily recieve a shot of permanent painkiller for their backs, necks and wrists to continue their 60+ hour work week race toward promotion, bonuses, reputation and other carrots.
I don't think it'll be used for ligament injuries like MCL/ACL issues where a brace helps, but for chronic issues like osteoarthritis where the cartilage is low or gone. The bone on bone pain is constant and the only long term solution is knee replacement.
There is lots around about people who suffer as a result of not having a pain sensation. Typically post stroke or similar event, but some (rarely) have a congenital absense of pain sensation. The presentation is often bizarre as pain is a very helpful diagnostic tool. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4755825/
We already use capsaicin patches. So hey.