Chronic Pain and the Nervous System: Why the World Hurts Too Much
Chronic pain affects nearly one in five adults in the US, and countless more worldwide. Until recently, it’s been treated as a symptom — something to be muted with painkillers or endured until it mysteriously subsides. Modern research actually shows chronic pain is much more than that. It’s a condition of the nervous system itself, essentially a rewiring of how the body and brain process pain signals.
Rather than focusing just on where it hurts, we need to understand why the pain persists, and how nervous system dysfunction keeps amplifying the alarm, long after the danger has passed.
Chronic Pain Is a Nervous System Disorder, Not Just a Symptom
Chronic pain, defined as pain lasting more than three months, is now recognized as a nervous system disease. The NIH and CDC emphasize that it’s not always caused by injury or disease in tissues, but by persistent changes in how the brain and spinal cord process pain signals and pathway blockages.
Central Sensitization: Pain That Won’t Turn Off
One of the clearest explanations of chronic pain comes from central sensitization. The healthy nervous system regularly acts like a home security system; it goes off only when there’s a real threat. In chronic pain, that system gets stuck. The alarms are relentless, even when nothing is wrong.
This alarm has the 'volume knob' turned too high as well, which explains why people with conditions like fibromyalgia, neurological Lyme disease, Morgellons, or long COVID often feel pain from things that shouldn’t hurt. In these illnesses, nerve fibers misfire, brain pathways stay on loud, high alert, and even gentle touch becomes unbearable.
Neuroinflammation: The Brain on Fire![]()
Pain isn’t just about nerves. Another huge factor is inflammation inside the brain. Researchers have found that glial cells, normally protectors of the nervous system, can become overactive and triggering instead. With chronic stress, infection, or injury, they release chemicals called cytokines. Instead of calming the system, these molecules trigger inflammatory chaos inside the brain.
This process, known as neuroinflammation, explains why pain frequently travels with symptoms of brain fog, depression, and anxiety. When glial cells stay switched on:
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Pain signals are amplified, even when there’s no new injury.
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Mood-regulating pathways are disrupted, leading to anxiety and depression.
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Communication between brain regions slows, leaving people with cognitive difficulties and memory lapses.
Over time, neuroinflammation traps the nervous system in a feedback loop where pain, mood changes, and mental fog reinforce each other. For some, this also manifests as multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) — often triggered by mold toxicity or other environmental exposures. In MCS, the nervous system reacts violently to everyday chemicals like perfume, cleaning products, or exhaust fumes.
In my own experience with mold toxicity triggered MCS, medications precribed and taken as such, began to Intoxicate me, leaving me completely terrified for a long time before figuring it out. What most people barely notice can quickly set off migraines, burning pain, or systemic crashes, showing just how destabilized the brain and body have become.
Stress, the HPA Axis, and the Endless Loop
Chronic pain and stress are locked in a loop. Pain activates the stress response, flooding the body with cortisol and adrenaline. Over time, this disrupts the HPA axis, the system that regulates hormones and stress responses. A dysregulated HPA axis leaves the body stuck in fight-or-flight, amplifying pain signals even further according to studies.
This is why so many people with chronic pain feel constantly on edge, or even panicked. The body bracing for danger never stops.
The Vagus Nerve and Pain
If the sympathetic nervous system is the accelerator, the vagus nerve is the brake. It’s the main driver of the parasympathetic “rest and digest” state, and it plays a big role in calming pain signals.
Stimulating the vagus nerve with simple techniques like deep breathing or humming, has been shown to reduce inflammation and ease pain.
Heightened Senses: When EVERYTHING is Too Much
One of the most overlooked realities of chronic pain is how it warps the senses. Bright light feels like knives behind the eyes. Normal sounds seem painfully loud. A gentle touch burns. Strong smells or tastes can trigger migraines, nausea and vomiting.
For people living with Morgellons disease or neurological Lyme, these sensory issues can be unbearable. Morgellons patients often describe sensations of crawling or stinging under the skin, combined with visual and tactile hypersensitivity. Lyme disease patients with neurological involvement may experience severe sound sensitivity, burning pain from light touch, and migraines triggered by simple stimuli. The two do crossover in nearly all symptoms.
When the nervous system is already misfiring, even the most ordinary stimuli, like light through a window, the hum of a fan, the brush of soft sheets on skin, can feel brutally painful. My own experience includes heightening of all my senses including smell and taste. It becomes just gross, is all I'll say about that.
This isn’t imagination. The same central sensitization that increases pain also can turn up every other sensory channel. For those with Morgellons and neurological Lyme, the nervous system is locked on high alert. The body interprets harmless signals as overwhelming threats, leaving people unable to rest, heal, or feel safe in their own skin. It’s why these illnesses feel so horrific — the world itself becomes hostile. The patient becomes more alone.
Why Standard Medications Fall Short
Opioids and other painkillers can dull signals temporarily, but they don’t retrain the nervous system. Quite the opposite. Over time, they create tolerance, dependence, or rebound pain. Opioids will also lower DAO levels, necessary for the body to regulate histamine.
As researchers note, opioids only seem to treat symptoms, not causes, leaving the nervous system as dysregulated as before.
New and Emerging Approaches to Pain Relief
A shift is happening in chronic pain treatment. Instead of just silencing signals, researchers and patients are focusing on how to retrain the nervous system.
Neuroplasticity-Based Therapies
Modalities like mindfulness, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), and somatic work teach the brain to reinterpret signals.
Low-Dose Naltrexone (LDN)
LDN may recalibrate the immune system and reduce neuroinflammation, offering relief without heavy sedation.
Neuromodulation Technologies
Tools like transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and non-invasive vagus nerve stimulators help disrupt pain loops.
Lifestyle Interventions
Simple pillars like restorative sleep, anti-inflammatory nutrition, movement, and lymphatic drainage support recovery.
Apitherapy and Megan’s Miracle
Another approach drawing slow attention is Apitherapy , the therapeutic use of bee products like venom, royal jelly, propolis, and pollen. Among these, bee venom therapy has been the most widely studied. Bee venom, or apitoxin contains over 40 active compounds, including melittin, which is known for its potent anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial properties. Research has shown that bee venom can reduce joint swelling, modulate immune activity, and assist with correcting nervous system signaling.
Bee venom injections have shown promise for arthritis, musculoskeletal pain, and neurological disorders. Patients often describe relief not only in physical pain, but also in energy levels and clarity of thought. While these findings are early and need more robust trials, they highlight an important truth: nature-based compounds may influence the nervous system in ways pharmaceuticals alone cannot.
That’s where Megan’s Miracle comes in. Unlike ad-hoc or DIY approaches to bee venom, Megan’s Miracle presents Apitherapy as part of a larger integrative vision — combining ancient healing practices with advanced scientific research. What makes it especially unique is that Apitherapy is not offered in isolation. The Megan’s Miracle protocol is paired with supervision, structured health coaching, and personalized support, giving patients a safe, guided way to explore therapies that are often overlooked in conventional care, including ongoing research with peptides and functional mushroom options for pain management.
Created by and for people living with conditions like Morgellons, neurological Lyme disease, and complex chronic pain, Megan’s Miracle reflects a larger truth: patients are no longer waiting for mainstream approval to innovate. They are designing their own bridges between suffering and relief — supported not only by natural medicine, but by education, coaching, and community.
Apitherapy is not without risks. Allergic reactions, localized swelling, and tissue irritation are possible, and serious anaphylaxis has been reported in sensitive individuals. This is why guidance, careful dosing, and ongoing coaching are critical. But within a comprehensive, integrative approach to chronic pain, apitherapy stands as a powerful example of how alternative therapies can complement nervous system retraining.
Megan’s Miracle doesn’t present itself as a “cure.” Instead, it offers a pathway of hope, guidance, and empowerment to those who feel trapped in systems that offer little more than symptom suppression. In doing so, it embodies a future of medicine where patients themselves drive discovery, blending lived experience with evidence-based innovation.
Trauma and Pain: The PTSD Connection
For many people living with chronic illness, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a hidden amplifier of pain. PTSD doesn’t just affect memory and mood — it physically rewires the nervous system. The body’s fight-or-flight response becomes the default setting, keeping stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline elevated long after the original trauma has passed.
This constant state of hyper-vigilance reshapes brain regions linked to both fear and pain — including the amygdala, hippocampus, and prefrontal cortex. As a result, the nervous system interprets even neutral sensations as threats. A normal ache becomes unbearable. A touch that shouldn’t hurt burns like fire. In conditions such as fibromyalgia, long COVID, neurological Lyme disease, and Morgellons, PTSD can magnify symptoms until the entire sensory world feels hostile (study).
The problem is that conventional pain treatments rarely address this overlap. Medications may dull signals temporarily, but if the nervous system is still bracing for danger, pain perception stays elevated. That’s why trauma-informed care is essential. Emotional safety isn’t a luxury — it’s part of the treatment plan for physical pain.
Therapies such as EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), somatic experiencing, and polyvagal-informed practices can help calm the nervous system by re-teaching it that the present is not the past. By easing that sense of threar, pain perception can finally shift. Regular small practices, like grounding exercises, breathwork, or sensory regulation, can begin to retrain the nervous system out of relentless survival mode.
Recognizing PTSD as a medical factor in chronic illness doesn’t minimize the reality of pain. On the contrary, it validates it. Pain is real — and sometimes it is the body’s memory of trauma, still feeling it in the present, until it’s literally taught to let go.
The good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease.
- William Osler
Listening to Patients, Shaping the Future
For too long, patient voices have been sidelined in pain research. The National Pain Strategy emphasizes a holistic, patient-centered approach. Megan’s Miracle and other community-driven innovations are real-world examples of what happens when people refuse to wait for medicine to catch up.
Chronic pain is not just a symptom. It’s a full-blown condition of the nervous system — one that rewires how we experience the world. Addressing it requires more than pills. It requires retraining the system, calming inflammation, and respecting the link between mind, body, and trauma.
From neuroplasticity to vagus nerve stimulation to apitherapy, the future of pain care lies in combining the best of science with the courage and creativity of patients. And perhaps the most important shift of all, is recognizing that the people in pain are no longer passive recipients of care. They are becoming, out of need, the innovators, and coaches needed for a new way forward. They first must be heard.
Conclusion for the Week
Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.
- Haruki Murakami
This week’s blog was delayed because of my own struggle with pain. The truth is, no matter what protocols you follow or how hard you fight to get well, sometimes the nervous system, the body, just hurts. My journey has taught me that even when you’re doing everything “right,” the fight can still feel endless. The isolation lasts longer than you ever imagined possible to survive. The pain you thought you had under control returns. And it is absolutely exhausting just to live.
For those who feel worn down, I see you. I am exhausted with you. The best thing you can do is reach out to people who truly understand and make sure you are heard — not those who want to debate whether you’re really that sick, or say they can't help, not understanding that just listening Would actually Help.
I once got advice I’ll never forget: you don’t go to the grocery store to buy a car. In other words, go where you will actually be met with the support you need. Even in the hardest weeks, connection with people who “get it” can be the lifeline that helps you endure.
We Get it. Start here today and be heard.
Author’s Note
I live this reality every day. Lyme and coinfections have taken my health, my daily life, my connections, currently my face — and even my voice at times. But it has not prevented me from becoming a true Warrior. I write this not just for myself, but for every Morgellons patient silenced, dismissed, and feeling erased.
Along with Megan’s Miracle, I continue to fight — for scientific understanding, recognition, for healing, and for hope. Western medicine may deny Morgellons exists, but we know better and so much more.
I see real monsters with my own eyes. I’ve felt the ongoing devastation in my own body. Suffered the real loses. I’ve got the labs as *proof*. And it has taken my unexpected, near super-human strength to survive this long. I know this: the real truth cannot be erased; and neither can we.
Hang in there!
xoxo
— Meredith Finegold
Writer • Health Coach • Advocate • Patient/Warrior